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OT - Judeo-Christian nation?"

Congressman Forbes asks the questions "Did America ever consider itself a
Judeo-Christian nation?"
and
"If America was once a Judeo-Christian nation, when did it cease to be?" on the
floor of the US House.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpQOCvthw-o

--

OT - Judeo-Christian nation?"

"cavelamb" wrote in message
...

Congressman Forbes asks the questions "Did America ever consider itself a
Judeo-Christian nation?"
and
"If America was once a Judeo-Christian nation, when did it cease to be?"
on the floor of the US House.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpQOCvthw-o

--

Roughly half of what he said is historically incorrect.

The USA was founded on Enlightenment principles, not "Judeo-Christian"
principles. At the time of the Declaration's signing, there was no principle
of individual rights in Christianity. There was only obligation and
obedience. The individual got his just due and his individual recognition in
the afterlife. On Earth, he was a servant.

The Enlightenment, although its thinkers often couched their words in
religious terms (in Locke's case, to avoid threatened prosecution; in
Jefferson's case, for the sake of politics), was a contradiction of
religious doctrine and was based on the individual dignity of man. No such
concept was present in Christianity at the time the country was founded.

The truth is more the reverse, that religion adopted Enlightenment
principles, starting late in the 18th century. In the US, Enlightenment
principles were tossed into the blender with a revolutionary Christianity
that rejected the whole church structure in favor of a new idea of man's
role in the universe, which was mostly the same idea as that of Locke, Hume,
and the other primary thinkers of the English Enlightenment.

One curiosity is the use of the term "Creator" rather than "God" in the
Declaration of Independence. That fits well with the fact that roughly half
of the Founders were not really Christians at all, but Deists. Thus,
Jefferson "edited" the Bible to suit his beliefs by taking out all
references to Jesus's divinity, to the virgin birth, and to miracles. His
edited Bible was widely applauded at the time. To Jefferson, a Deist with a
Unitarian bent, the mysteries of Christianity were nothing but superstition:

"And the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme
being as his father in the womb of a virgin will be classed with the fable
of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter. But we may hope that
the dawn of reason and freedom of thought in these United States will do
away with all this artificial scaffolding, and restore to us the primitive
and genuine doctrines of this the most venerated reformer of human
errors." -- Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Adams, April 11, 1823

To Jefferson, Christianity was a set of ideals larded with absurd
superstitions. He admired Jesus but thought that Christians were absurd.
Likewise to many of the Deists of the time; the intellectuals of
late-Enlightenment Europe and America. And they were the ones who
incorporated the Enlightenment principles -- founded on an abstract idea of
"nature" and "natural rights," most definitely NOT Christian principles
until Christianity adopted them in the decades to follow -- into our
Constitution, our Declaration of Independence, and our Bill of Rights.

God was thrown in occasionally to keep the lid on. g

--
Ed Huntress

OT - Judeo-Christian nation?"

"cavelamb" wrote in message
...

Congressman Forbes asks the questions "Did America ever consider itself a
Judeo-Christian nation?"
and
"If America was once a Judeo-Christian nation, when did it cease to be?"
on the floor of the US House.

And the Q is, or should be, irrelevant. If there were total separation of
church and state, as there should be.

The real Q is, When did America become an effing irrational nation, with
media and "entertainment" that could scramble the brain of a dead person?

--

Mr. PV'd

Mae West (yer fav CongressShill) to the Gangster (yer fav Lobbyist):
Hey, Big Boy, is that a wad (of cash) in yer pocket, or are you just
glad to see me??

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpQOCvthw-o

--

OT - Judeo-Christian nation?"

Proctologically Violated©® wrote:
"cavelamb" wrote in message
...
Congressman Forbes asks the questions "Did America ever consider itself a
Judeo-Christian nation?"
and
"If America was once a Judeo-Christian nation, when did it cease to be?"
on the floor of the US House.

And the Q is, or should be, irrelevant. If there were total separation of
church and state, as there should be.

The real Q is, When did America become an effing irrational nation, with
media and "entertainment" that could scramble the brain of a dead person?

I think that was about 1973...

OT - Judeo-Christian nation?"

"Proctologically Violated©®" wrote:

The real Q is, When did America become an effing irrational nation, with
media and "entertainment" that could scramble the brain of a dead person?

The year, month and day you were born?

--
You can't have a sense of humor, if you have no sense!

OT - Judeo-Christian nation?"

Michael A. Terrell wrote:
"Proctologically Violated©®" wrote:
The real Q is, When did America become an effing irrational nation, with
media and "entertainment" that could scramble the brain of a dead person?

The year, month and day you were born?

WAY long before that...

OT - Judeo-Christian nation?"

"cavelamb" wrote in message
...
Proctologically Violated©® wrote:
"cavelamb" wrote in message
...
Congressman Forbes asks the questions "Did America ever consider itself
a Judeo-Christian nation?"
and
"If America was once a Judeo-Christian nation, when did it cease to be?"
on the floor of the US House.

And the Q is, or should be, irrelevant. If there were total separation
of church and state, as there should be.

The real Q is, When did America become an effing irrational nation, with
media and "entertainment" that could scramble the brain of a dead person?

I think that was about 1973...

Naah, I think it was Woodstock.

CorPirate Merka took one look at these luded-out half-necked assholes
dancing in the mud, and correctly concluded that the establishment/status
quo had nary a thing to worry about, ever.

CorPirate Merka realized that since the Flower Generation was already
mind****ing itself, it would be cake to for CorPirate Merka to mind**** sed
generation more completely later on.

And that was without any hint of the internet.

--

Mr. PV'd

Mae West (yer fav CongressShill) to the Gangster (yer fav Lobbyist):
Hey, Big Boy, is that a wad (of cash) in yer pocket, or are you just
glad to see me??

OT - Judeo-Christian nation?"

On Jun 18, 9:45*pm, cavelamb wrote:
Proctologically Violated©® wrote:
"cavelamb" wrote in message
Congressman Forbes asks ...

The real Q is, When did America become an effing irrational nation, with
media and "entertainment" that could scramble the brain of a dead person?

I think that was about 1973...

In the 50's Playhouse 90 and Hallmark Hall of Fame presented some
excellent, literate material but few watched. By the early 60's the
most intellectually challenging program was Rocky and Bullwinkle.

jsw

OT - Judeo-Christian nation?"

On Thu, 18 Jun 2009 20:55:33 -0400, "Ed Huntress"
wrote:

"cavelamb" wrote in message
...

Congressman Forbes asks the questions "Did America ever consider itself a
Judeo-Christian nation?"
and
"If America was once a Judeo-Christian nation, when did it cease to be?"
on the floor of the US House.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpQOCvthw-o

--

Roughly half of what he said is historically incorrect.

The USA was founded on Enlightenment principles, not "Judeo-Christian"
principles. At the time of the Declaration's signing, there was no principle
of individual rights in Christianity. There was only obligation and
obedience. The individual got his just due and his individual recognition in
the afterlife. On Earth, he was a servant.

The Enlightenment, although its thinkers often couched their words in
religious terms (in Locke's case, to avoid threatened prosecution; in
Jefferson's case, for the sake of politics), was a contradiction of
religious doctrine and was based on the individual dignity of man. No such
concept was present in Christianity at the time the country was founded.

The truth is more the reverse, that religion adopted Enlightenment
principles, starting late in the 18th century. In the US, Enlightenment
principles were tossed into the blender with a revolutionary Christianity
that rejected the whole church structure in favor of a new idea of man's
role in the universe, which was mostly the same idea as that of Locke, Hume,
and the other primary thinkers of the English Enlightenment.

One curiosity is the use of the term "Creator" rather than "God" in the
Declaration of Independence. That fits well with the fact that roughly half
of the Founders were not really Christians at all, but Deists. Thus,
Jefferson "edited" the Bible to suit his beliefs by taking out all
references to Jesus's divinity, to the virgin birth, and to miracles. His
edited Bible was widely applauded at the time. To Jefferson, a Deist with a
Unitarian bent, the mysteries of Christianity were nothing but superstition:

"And the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme
being as his father in the womb of a virgin will be classed with the fable
of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter. But we may hope that
the dawn of reason and freedom of thought in these United States will do
away with all this artificial scaffolding, and restore to us the primitive
and genuine doctrines of this the most venerated reformer of human
errors." -- Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Adams, April 11, 1823

To Jefferson, Christianity was a set of ideals larded with absurd
superstitions. He admired Jesus but thought that Christians were absurd.
Likewise to many of the Deists of the time; the intellectuals of
late-Enlightenment Europe and America. And they were the ones who
incorporated the Enlightenment principles -- founded on an abstract idea of
"nature" and "natural rights," most definitely NOT Christian principles
until Christianity adopted them in the decades to follow -- into our
Constitution, our Declaration of Independence, and our Bill of Rights.

God was thrown in occasionally to keep the lid on. g

Ed I think you've missed the boat there.
werent the founding fathers of america more attuned to freemason
principles than religious principles. (they're not the same)
have a look at the eye in the pyramid on your currency and many of the
other unexplained symbols. that's freemasonry.
Stealth Pilot

OT - Judeo-Christian nation?"

On Jun 19, 6:42*am, Stealth Pilot
wrote:
On Thu, 18 Jun 2009 20:55:33 -0400, "Ed Huntress"

Ed I think you've missed the boat there.
werent the founding fathers of america more attuned to freemason
principles than religious principles. (they're not the same)
have a look at the eye in the pyramid on your currency and many of the
other unexplained symbols. that's freemasonry.
Stealth Pilot-

Sort of. FDR was a 32nd degree Mason yet he didn't recognize the
significance of the reverse of our Great Seal until Wallace explained
it to him.
Annuit coeptis: He favors / gives the nod to / [our] undertaking.
The all-seeing eye of God.
The unfinished 13-step pyramid is a solid beginning with more to come.
Novus ordo seclorum: literally a New Order of the Ages, fig. the new
form of US government.

jsw

OT - Judeo-Christian nation?"

"Jim Wilkins" wrote in message
...
On Jun 19, 6:42 am, Stealth Pilot
wrote:
On Thu, 18 Jun 2009 20:55:33 -0400, "Ed Huntress"

Ed I think you've missed the boat there.
werent the founding fathers of america more attuned to freemason
principles than religious principles. (they're not the same)
have a look at the eye in the pyramid on your currency and many of the
other unexplained symbols. that's freemasonry.
Stealth Pilot-

For some reason that post doesn't appear on my newsreader, so I don't know
the full context.

But my response is, no. Those principles were more a matter of individual
morality and relationships. There was no discussion of religion or politics
allowed in the lodges -- I think that's still true. The only religious
requirement is belief in a supreme being, the interpretation of which is
left up to the member. Thus, there are Seikh Masons, and Hindu Masons.
Deism, too, fits right into the requirement.

Aside from principles that are common to many sets of moral and religious
beliefs, there isn't much of a doctrine in freemasonry that could be called
a set of principles for organizing a society. That's the province of
religions and broad philosophical schools of thought, such as those of the
Enlightenment.

--
Ed Huntress

OT - Judeo-Christian nation?"

On Jun 19, 7:46*am, "Ed Huntress" wrote:

For some reason that post doesn't appear on my newsreader, so I don't know
the full context.

Rad it on Google Groups

http://groups.google.com/group/rec.c...e674c11810799a

OT - Judeo-Christian nation?"

"N Morrison" wrote in message
...
On Jun 19, 7:46 am, "Ed Huntress" wrote:

For some reason that post doesn't appear on my newsreader, so I don't know
the full context.

Rad it on Google Groups

http://groups.google.com/group/rec.c...e674c11810799a

Thanks. It eventually showed up on my server. It's a little cranky this
week.

--
Ed Huntress

OT - Judeo-Christian nation?"

"Ed Huntress" wrote in message
...

"cavelamb" wrote in message
...

Congressman Forbes asks the questions "Did America ever consider itself a
Judeo-Christian nation?"
and
"If America was once a Judeo-Christian nation, when did it cease to be?"
on the floor of the US House.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpQOCvthw-o

--

Roughly half of what he said is historically incorrect.

The USA was founded on Enlightenment principles, not "Judeo-Christian"
principles. At the time of the Declaration's signing, there was no
principle of individual rights in Christianity. There was only obligation
and obedience. The individual got his just due and his individual
recognition in the afterlife. On Earth, he was a servant.

The Enlightenment, although its thinkers often couched their words in
religious terms (in Locke's case, to avoid threatened prosecution; in
Jefferson's case, for the sake of politics), was a contradiction of
religious doctrine and was based on the individual dignity of man. No such
concept was present in Christianity at the time the country was founded.

The truth is more the reverse, that religion adopted Enlightenment
principles, starting late in the 18th century. In the US, Enlightenment
principles were tossed into the blender with a revolutionary Christianity
that rejected the whole church structure in favor of a new idea of man's
role in the universe, which was mostly the same idea as that of Locke,
Hume, and the other primary thinkers of the English Enlightenment.

One curiosity is the use of the term "Creator" rather than "God" in the
Declaration of Independence. That fits well with the fact that roughly
half of the Founders were not really Christians at all, but Deists. Thus,
Jefferson "edited" the Bible to suit his beliefs by taking out all
references to Jesus's divinity, to the virgin birth, and to miracles. His
edited Bible was widely applauded at the time. To Jefferson, a Deist with
a Unitarian bent, the mysteries of Christianity were nothing but
superstition:

"And the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the
supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin will be classed with
the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter. But we may
hope that the dawn of reason and freedom of thought in these United States
will do away with all this artificial scaffolding, and restore to us the
primitive and genuine doctrines of this the most venerated reformer of
human errors." -- Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Adams, April 11, 1823

To Jefferson, Christianity was a set of ideals larded with absurd
superstitions. He admired Jesus but thought that Christians were absurd.
Likewise to many of the Deists of the time; the intellectuals of
late-Enlightenment Europe and America. And they were the ones who
incorporated the Enlightenment principles -- founded on an abstract idea
of "nature" and "natural rights," most definitely NOT Christian principles
until Christianity adopted them in the decades to follow -- into our
Constitution, our Declaration of Independence, and our Bill of Rights.

God was thrown in occasionally to keep the lid on. g

--
Ed Huntress

Jefferson, the man that wrote "separation of church and state" attended
church in Congress the following Sunday. He also gave government money to
missionaries. You're liberal mis-education isn't serving you well. There's
a book out about liberal lies you probably learned in school, may help.

Quotes of the founding fathers, I'll bet they didn't teach these in liberal
schools.

The First Charter of Virginia (granted by King James I, on April 10, 1606)
• We, greatly commending, and graciously accepting of, their Desires for the
Furtherance of so noble a Work, which may, by the Providence of Almighty
God, hereafter tend to the Glory of his Divine Majesty, in propagating of
Christian Religion to such People, as yet live in Darkness and miserable
Ignorance of the true Knowledge and Worship of God…
Instructions for the Virginia Colony (1606)
Lastly and chiefly the way to prosper and achieve good success is to make
yourselves all of one mind for the good of your country and your own, and to
serve and fear God the Giver of all Goodness, for every plantation which our
Heavenly Father hath not planted shall be rooted out.

William Bradford
• wrote that they [the Pilgrims] were seeking:
• 1) "a better, and easier place of living”; and that “the children of the
group were being drawn away by evil examples into extravagance and dangerous
courses [in Holland]“
• 2) “The great hope, and for the propagating and advancing the gospel of
the kingdom of Christ in those remote parts of the world"
The Mayflower Compact (authored by William Bradford) 1620 | Signing of the
Mayflower painting | Picture of Compact
“Having undertaken, for the glory of God, and advancement of the Christian
faith, and honor of our King and Country, a voyage to plant the first colony
in the northern parts of Virginia, do by these presents solemnly and
mutually, in the presence of God, and one of another, covenant and combine
our selves together…”
__________________________________________________ ____________________

John Adams and John Hancock:
We Recognize No Sovereign but God, and no King but Jesus! [April 18, 1775]

John Adams:
“ The general principles upon which the Fathers achieved independence were
the general principals of Christianity… I will avow that I believed and now
believe that those general principles of Christianity are as eternal and
immutable as the existence and attributes of God.”
• “[July 4th] ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance by solemn
acts of devotion to God Almighty.”
–John Adams in a letter written to Abigail on the day the Declaration was
approved by Congress

"We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human
passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or
gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale
goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious
people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." --October
11, 1798

"I have examined all religions, as well as my narrow sphere, my straightened
means, and my busy life, would allow; and the result is that the Bible is
the best Book in the world. It contains more philosophy than all the
libraries I have seen." December 25, 1813 letter to Thomas Jefferson

"Without Religion this World would be Something not fit to be mentioned in
polite Company, I mean Hell." [John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, April 19,
1817] |

Samuel Adams: | Portrait of Sam Adams
“ He who made all men hath made the truths necessary to human happiness
obvious to all… Our forefathers opened the Bible to all.” [ "American
Independence," August 1, 1776. Speech delivered at the State House in
Philadelphia]

“ Let divines and philosophers, statesmen and patriots, unite their
endeavors to renovate the age by impressing the minds of men with the
importance of educating their little boys and girls, inculcating in the
minds of youth the fear and love of the Deity… and leading them in the study
and practice of the exalted virtues of the Christian system.” [October 4,
1790]

John Quincy Adams:
• “Why is it that, next to the birthday of the Savior of the world, your
most joyous and most venerated festival returns on this day [the Fourth of
July]?" “Is it not that, in the chain of human events, the birthday of the
nation is indissolubly linked with the birthday of the Savior? That it forms
a leading event in the progress of the Gospel dispensation? Is it not that
the Declaration of Independence first organized the social compact on the
foundation of the Redeemer's mission upon earth? That it laid the
cornerstone of human government upon the first precepts of Christianity"?
--1837, at the age of 69, when he delivered a Fourth of July speech at
Newburyport, Massachusetts.

“The Law given from Sinai [The Ten Commandments] was a civil and municipal
as well as a moral and religious code.”
John Quincy Adams. Letters to his son. p. 61

Elias Boudinot: | Portrait of Elias Boudinot
“ Be religiously careful in our choice of all public officers . . . and
judge of the tree by its fruits.”

Charles Carroll - signer of the Declaration of Independence | Portrait of
Charles Carroll
" Without morals a republic cannot subsist any length of time; they
therefore who are decrying the Christian religion, whose morality is so
sublime and pure...are undermining the solid foundation of morals, the best
security for the duration of free governments." [Source: To James McHenry on
November 4, 1800.]

Benjamin Franklin: | Portrait of Ben Franklin
“ God governs in the affairs of man. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the
ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without
His aid? We have been assured in the Sacred Writings that except the Lord
build the house, they labor in vain that build it. I firmly believe this. I
also believe that, without His concurring aid, we shall succeed in this
political building no better than the builders of Babel” –Constitutional
Convention of 1787 | original manuscript of this speech

“In the beginning of the contest with Britain, when we were sensible of
danger, we had daily prayers in this room for Divine protection. Our
prayers, Sir, were heard, and they were graciously answered… do we imagine
we no longer need His assistance?” [Constitutional Convention, Thursday June
28, 1787]

In Benjamin Franklin's 1749 plan of education for public schools in
Pennsylvania, he insisted that schools teach "the excellency of the
Christian religion above all others, ancient or modern."

In 1787 when Franklin helped found Benjamin Franklin University, it was
dedicated as "a nursery of religion and learning, built on Christ, the
Cornerstone."

Alexander Hamilton:
• Hamilton began work with the Rev. James Bayard to form the Christian
Constitutional Society to help spread over the world the two things which
Hamilton said made America great:
(1) Christianity
(2) a Constitution formed under Christianity.
“The Christian Constitutional Society, its object is first: The support of
the Christian religion. Second: The support of the United States.”

On July 12, 1804 at his death, Hamilton said, “I have a tender reliance on
the mercy of the Almighty, through the merits of the Lord Jesus Christ. I am
a sinner. I look to Him for mercy; pray for me.”

"For my own part, I sincerely esteem it [the Constitution] a system which
without the finger of God, never could have been suggested and agreed upon
by such a diversity of interests." [1787 after the Constitutional
Convention]

"I have carefully examined the evidences of the Christian religion, and if I
was sitting as a juror upon its authenticity I would unhesitatingly give my
verdict in its favor. I can prove its truth as clearly as any proposition
ever submitted to the mind of man."

John Hancock:
• “In circumstances as dark as these, it becomes us, as Men and Christians,
to reflect that whilst every prudent measure should be taken to ward off the
impending judgments, …at the same time all confidence must be withheld from
the means we use; and reposed only on that God rules in the armies of
Heaven, and without His whole blessing, the best human counsels are but
foolishness… Resolved; …Thursday the 11th of May…to humble themselves before
God under the heavy judgments felt and feared, to confess the sins that have
deserved them, to implore the Forgiveness of all our transgressions, and a
spirit of repentance and reformation …and a Blessing on the … Union of the
American Colonies in Defense of their Rights [for which hitherto we desire
to thank Almighty God]…That the people of Great Britain and their rulers may
have their eyes opened to discern the things that shall make for the peace
of the nation…for the redress of America’s many grievances, the restoration
of all her invaded liberties, and their security to the latest generations.
"A Day of Fasting, Humiliation and Prayer, with a total abstinence from
labor and recreation. Proclamation on April 15, 1775"

Patrick Henry:
"Orator of the Revolution."
• This is all the inheritance I can give my dear family. The religion of
Christ can give them one which will make them rich indeed.”
—The Last Will and Testament of Patrick Henry

“It cannot be emphasized too clearly and too often that this nation was
founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religion, but on the
gospel of Jesus Christ. For this very reason, peoples of other faiths have
been afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom of worship here.” [May 1765
Speech to the House of Burgesses]

“The Bible is worth all other books which have ever been printed.”

John Jay:
“ Providence has given to our people the choice of their rulers, and it is
the duty, as well as the privilege and interest of our Christian nation to
select and prefer Christians for their rulers.” Source: October 12, 1816.
The Correspondence and Public Papers of John Jay, Henry P. Johnston, ed.,
(New York: Burt Franklin, 1970), Vol. IV, p. 393.

“Whether our religion permits Christians to vote for infidel rulers is a
question which merits more consideration than it seems yet to have generally
received either from the clergy or the laity. It appears to me that what the
prophet said to Jehoshaphat about his attachment to Ahab ["Shouldest thou
help the ungodly and love them that hate the Lord?" 2 Chronicles 19:2]
affords a salutary lesson.” [The Correspondence and Public Papers of John
Jay, 1794-1826, Henry P. Johnston, editor (New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons,
1893), Vol. IV, p.365]

Thomas Jefferson:
“ The doctrines of Jesus are simple, and tend to all the happiness of man.”

“Of all the systems of morality, ancient or modern which have come under my
observation, none appears to me so pure as that of Jesus.”

"I am a real Christian, that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of
Jesus."

“God who gave us life gave us liberty. And can the liberties of a nation be
thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in
the minds of the people that these liberties are a gift from God? That they
are not to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed I tremble for my country
when I reflect that God is just, and that His justice cannot sleep forever.”
(excerpts are inscribed on the walls of the Jefferson Memorial in the
nations capital) [Source: Merrill . D. Peterson, ed., Jefferson Writings,
(New York: Literary Classics of the United States, Inc., 1984), Vol. IV, p.
289. From Jefferson’s Notes on the State of Virginia, Query XVIII, 1781.]

Samuel Johnston:
• “It is apprehended that Jews, Mahometans (Muslims), pagans, etc., may be
elected to high offices under the government of the United States. Those who
are Mahometans, or any others who are not professors of the Christian
religion, can never be elected to the office of President or other high
office, [unless] first the people of America lay aside the Christian
religion altogether, it may happen. Should this unfortunately take place,
the people will choose such men as think as they do themselves.
[Elliot’s Debates, Vol. IV, pp 198-199, Governor Samuel Johnston, July 30,
1788 at the North Carolina Ratifying Convention]

James Madison
“ We’ve staked our future on our ability to follow the Ten Commandments with
all of our heart.”

“We have staked the whole future of American civilization, not upon the
power of government, far from it. We’ve staked the future of all our
political institutions upon our capacity…to sustain ourselves according to
the Ten Commandments of God.” [1778 to the General Assembly of the State of
Virginia]

• I have sometimes thought there could not be a stronger testimony in favor
of religion or against temporal enjoyments, even the most rational and
manly, than for men who occupy the most honorable and gainful departments
and [who] are rising in reputation and wealth, publicly to declare the
unsatisfactoriness [of temportal enjoyments] by becoming fervent advocates
in the cause of Christ; and I wish you may give in your evidence in this
way.
Letter by Madison to William Bradford (September 25, 1773)
• In 1812, President Madison signed a federal bill which economically aided
the Bible Society of Philadelphia in its goal of the mass distribution of
the Bible.
“ An Act for the relief of the Bible Society of Philadelphia” Approved
February 2, 1813 by Congress

“It is the mutual duty of all to practice Christian forbearance, love, and
charity toward each other.”

• A watchful eye must be kept on ourselves lest, while we are building ideal
monuments of renown and bliss here, we neglect to have our names enrolled in
the Annals of Heaven. [Letter by Madison to William Bradford [urging him to
make sure of his own salvation] November 9, 1772]

At the Constitutional Convention of 1787, James Madison proposed the plan to
divide the central government into three branches. He discovered this model
of government from the Perfect Governor, as he read Isaiah 33:22;
“For the LORD is our judge, the LORD is our lawgiver,
the LORD is our king;
He will save us.”
[Baron Charles Montesquieu, wrote in 1748; “Nor is there liberty if the
power of judging is not separated from legislative power and from executive
power. If it [the power of judging] were joined to legislative power, the
power over life and liberty of the citizens would be arbitrary, for the
judge would be the legislature if it were joined to the executive power, the
judge could have the force of an oppressor. All would be lost if the same …
body of principal men … exercised these three powers." Madison claimed
Isaiah 33:22 as the source of division of power in government
See also: pp.241-242 in Teaching and Learning America’s Christian History:
The Principle approach by Rosalie Slater]

James McHenry – Signer of the Constitution
Public utility pleads most forcibly for the general distribution of the Holy
Scriptures. The doctrine they preach, the obligations they impose, the
punishment they threaten, the rewards they promise, the stamp and image of
divinity they bear, which produces a conviction of their truths, can alone
secure to society, order and peace, and to our courts of justice and
constitutions of government, purity, stability and usefulness. In vain,
without the Bible, we increase penal laws and draw entrenchments around our
institutions. Bibles are strong entrenchments. Where they abound, men cannot
pursue wicked courses, and at the same time enjoy quiet conscience.

Jedediah Morse:
"To the kindly influence of Christianity we owe that degree of civil
freedom, and political and social happiness which mankind now enjoys. . . .
Whenever the pillars of Christianity shall be overthrown, our present
republican forms of government, and all blessings which flow from them, must
fall with them."

John Peter Gabriel Muhlenberg
In a sermon delivered to his Virginia congregation on Jan. 21, 1776, he
preached from Ecclesiastes 3.
Arriving at verse 8, which declares that there is a time of war and a time
of peace, Muhlenberg noted that this surely was not the time of peace; this
was the time of war. Concluding with a prayer, and while standing in full
view of the congregation, he removed his clerical robes to reveal that
beneath them he was wearing the uniform of an officer in the Continental
army! He marched to the back of the church; ordered the drum to beat for
recruits and over three hundred men joined him, becoming the Eighth Virginia
Brigade. John Peter Muhlenberg finished the Revolution as a Major-General,
having been at Valley Forge and having participated in the battles of
Brandywine, Germantown, Monmouth, Stonypoint, and Yorktown.

Thomas Paine:
“ It has been the error of the schools to teach astronomy, and all the other
sciences, and subjects of natural philosophy, as accomplishments only;
whereas they should be taught theologically, or with reference to the Being
who is the author of them: for all the principles of science are of divine
origin. Man cannot make, or invent, or contrive principles: he can only
discover them; and he ought to look through the discovery to the Author.”
“ The evil that has resulted from the error of the schools, in teaching
natural philosophy as an accomplishment only, has been that of generating in
the pupils a species of atheism. Instead of looking through the works of
creation to the Creator himself, they stop short, and employ the knowledge
they acquire to create doubts of his existence. They labour with studied
ingenuity to ascribe every thing they behold to innate properties of matter,
and jump over all the rest by saying, that matter is eternal.” “The
Existence of God--1810”

Benjamin Rush:
• “I lament that we waste so much time and money in punishing crimes and
take so little pains to prevent them…we neglect the only means of
establishing and perpetuating our republican forms of government; that is,
the universal education of our youth in the principles of Christianity by
means of the Bible; for this Divine Book, above all others, constitutes the
soul of republicanism.” “By withholding the knowledge of [the Scriptures]
from children, we deprive ourselves of the best means of awakening moral
sensibility in their minds.” [Letter written (1790’s) in Defense of the
Bible in all schools in America]
• “Christianity is the only true and perfect religion.”
• “If moral precepts alone could have reformed mankind, the mission of the
Son of God into our world would have been unnecessary.”

"Let the children who are sent to those schools be taught to read and write
and above all, let both sexes be carefully instructed in the principles and
obligations of the Christian religion. This is the most essential part of
education”
Letters of Benjamin Rush, "To the citizens of Philadelphia: A Plan for Free
Schools", March 28, 1787

Justice Joseph Story:
“ I verily believe Christianity necessary to the support of civil society.
One of the beautiful boasts of our municipal jurisprudence is that
Christianity is a part of the Common Law. . . There never has been a period
in which the Common Law did not recognize Christianity as lying its
foundations.”
[Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States p. 593]
“ Infidels and pagans were banished from the halls of justice as unworthy of
credit.” [Life and letters of Joseph Story, Vol. II 1851, pp. 8-9.]
“ At the time of the adoption of the constitution, and of the amendment to
it, now under consideration [i.e., the First Amendment], the general, if not
the universal sentiment in America was, that Christianity ought to receive
encouragement from the state, so far as was not incompatible with the
private rights of conscience, and the freedom of religious worship.”
[Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States p. 593]

Noah Webster:
“ The duties of men are summarily comprised in the Ten Commandments,
consisting of two tables; one comprehending the duties which we owe
immediately to God-the other, the duties we owe to our fellow men.”

“In my view, the Christian religion is the most important and one of the
first things in which all children, under a free government ought to be
instructed...No truth is more evident to my mind than that the Christian
religion must be the basis of any government intended to secure the rights
and privileges of a free people.”
[Source: 1828, in the preface to his American Dictionary of the English
Language]

Let it be impressed on your mind that God commands you to choose for rulers
just men who will rule in the fear of God [Exodus 18:21]. . . . If the
citizens neglect their duty and place unprincipled men in office, the
government will soon be corrupted . . . If our government fails to secure
public prosperity and happiness, it must be because the citizens neglect the
Divine commands, and elect bad men to make and administer the laws. [Noah
Webster, The History of the United States (New Haven: Durrie and Peck,
1832), pp. 336-337, 49]

“All the miseries and evils which men suffer from vice, crime, ambition,
injustice, oppression, slavery and war, proceed from their despising or
neglecting the precepts contained in the Bible.” [Noah Webster. History. p.
339]

“The Bible was America’s basic textbook
in all fields.” [Noah Webster. Our Christian Heritage p.5]

“Education is useless without the Bible” [Noah Webster. Our Christian
Heritage p.5 ]

George Washington:

Farewell Address: The name of American, which belongs to you, in your
national capacity, must always exalt the just pride of Patriotism, more than
any appellation derived from local discriminations. With slight shades of
difference, you have the same religion" ...and later: "...reason and
experience both forbid us to expect, that national morality can prevail in
exclusion of religious principle..."

“ It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and Bible.”

“What students would learn in American schools above all is the religion of
Jesus Christ.” [speech to the Delaware Indian Chiefs May 12, 1779]

"To the distinguished character of patriot, it should be our highest glory
to add the more distinguished character of Christian" [May 2, 1778, at
Valley Forge]

During his inauguration, Washington took the oath as prescribed by the
Constitution but added several religious components to that official
ceremony. Before taking his oath of office, he summoned a Bible on which to
take the oath, added the words “So help me God!” to the end of the oath,
then leaned over and kissed the Bible.

Nelly Custis-Lewis (Washington’s adopted daughter):
Is it necessary that any one should [ask], “Did General Washington avow
himself to be a believer in Christianity?" As well may we question his
patriotism, his heroic devotion to his country. His mottos were, "Deeds, not
Words"; and, "For God and my Country."

“ O Most Glorious God, in Jesus Christ, my merciful and loving Father; I
acknowledge and confess my guilt in the weak and imperfect performance of
the duties of this day. I have called on Thee for pardon and forgiveness of
my sins, but so coldly and carelessly that my prayers are become my sin, and
they stand in need of pardon.”
“ I have sinned against heaven and before Thee in thought, word, and deed. I
have contemned Thy majesty and holy laws. I have likewise sinned by omitting
what I ought to have done and committing what I ought not. I have rebelled
against the light, despising Thy mercies and judgment, and broken my vows
and promise. I have neglected the better things. My iniquities are
multiplied and my sins are very great. I confess them, O Lord, with shame
and sorrow, detestation and loathing and desire to be vile in my own eyes as
I have rendered myself vile in Thine. I humbly beseech Thee to be merciful
to me in the free pardon of my sins for the sake of Thy dear Son and only
Savior Jesus Christ who came to call not the righteous, but sinners to
repentance. Thou gavest Thy Son to die for me.”
[George Washington; from a 24 page authentic handwritten manuscript book
dated April 21-23, 1752
William J. Johnson George Washington, the Christian (New York: The Abingdon
Press, New York & Cincinnati, 1919), pp. 24-35.]

"Although guided by our excellent Constitution in the discharge of official
duties, and actuated, through the whole course of my public life, solely by
a wish to promote the best interests of our country; yet, without the
beneficial interposition of the Supreme Ruler of the Universe, we could not
have reached the distinguished situation which we have attained with such
unprecedented rapidity. To HIM, therefore, should we bow with gratitude and
reverence, and endeavor to merit a continuance of HIS special favors". [1797
letter to John Adams]

James Wilson:
Signer of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution
Supreme Court Justice appointed by George Washington
Spoke 168 times during the Constitutional Convention

"Christianity is part of the common law"
[Sources: James Wilson, Course of Lectures [vol 3, p.122]; and quoted in
Updegraph v. The Commonwealth, 11 Serg, & R. 393, 403 (1824).]

__________________________________________________ ______________________
Public Institutions
Liberty Bell Inscription:
“ Proclaim liberty throughout the land and to all the inhabitants thereof”
[Leviticus 25:10]

Proposals for the seal of the United States of America
• “Moses lifting his wand and dividing the Red Sea” –Ben Franklin

• “The children of Israel in the wilderness, led by a cloud by day and a
pillar of fire by night.” --Thomas Jefferson

On July 4, 1776, Congress appointed Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and
John Adams "to bring in a device for a seal for the United States of
America." Franklin's proposal adapted the biblical story of the parting of
the Red Sea. Jefferson first recommended the "Children of Israel in the
Wilderness, led by a Cloud by Day, and a Pillar of Fire by night. . . ." He
then embraced Franklin's proposal and rewrote it

Jefferson's revision of Franklin's proposal was presented by the committee
to Congress on August 20, 1776.

Another popular proposal to the Great Seal of the United States was:
" Rebellion to Tyrants is Obedience to God"; with Pharoah's army drowning in
the Red Sea

The three branches of the U.S. Government: Judicial, Legislative, Executive
• At the Constitutional Convention of 1787, James Madison proposed the plan
to divide the central government into three branches. He discovered this
model of government from the Perfect Governor, as he read Isaiah 33:22;
“For the LORD is our judge,
the LORD is our lawgiver,
the LORD is our king;
He will save us.”

Article 22 of the constitution of Delaware (1776)
Required all officers, besides taking an oath of allegiance, to make and
subscribe to the following declaration:
• "I, [name], do profess faith in God the Father, and in Jesus Christ His
only Son, and in the Holy Ghost, one God, blessed for evermore; and I do
acknowledge the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be given by
divine inspiration."

New York Spectator. August 23, 1831
“ The court of common pleas of Chester county, [New York] rejected a witness
who declared his disbelief in the existence of God. The presiding judge
remarked that he had not before been aware that there was a man living who
did not believe in the existence of God; that this belief constituted the
sanction of all testimony in a court of justice: and that he knew of no
cause in a Christian country where a witness had been permitted to testify
without such belief.

New England Primer:
Used in public and private schools from 1690 to 1900 second only to the
Bible
Some of its contents:
A song of praise to God
Prayers in Jesus’ name
The famous Bible alphabet
Shorter Catechism of faith in Christ

OT - Judeo-Christian nation?"

"RogerN" wrote in message
m...

"Ed Huntress" wrote in message
...

"cavelamb" wrote in message
...

Congressman Forbes asks the questions "Did America ever consider itself
a Judeo-Christian nation?"
and
"If America was once a Judeo-Christian nation, when did it cease to be?"
on the floor of the US House.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpQOCvthw-o

--

Roughly half of what he said is historically incorrect.

The USA was founded on Enlightenment principles, not "Judeo-Christian"
principles. At the time of the Declaration's signing, there was no
principle of individual rights in Christianity. There was only obligation
and obedience. The individual got his just due and his individual
recognition in the afterlife. On Earth, he was a servant.

The Enlightenment, although its thinkers often couched their words in
religious terms (in Locke's case, to avoid threatened prosecution; in
Jefferson's case, for the sake of politics), was a contradiction of
religious doctrine and was based on the individual dignity of man. No
such concept was present in Christianity at the time the country was
founded.

The truth is more the reverse, that religion adopted Enlightenment
principles, starting late in the 18th century. In the US, Enlightenment
principles were tossed into the blender with a revolutionary Christianity
that rejected the whole church structure in favor of a new idea of man's
role in the universe, which was mostly the same idea as that of Locke,
Hume, and the other primary thinkers of the English Enlightenment.

One curiosity is the use of the term "Creator" rather than "God" in the
Declaration of Independence. That fits well with the fact that roughly
half of the Founders were not really Christians at all, but Deists. Thus,
Jefferson "edited" the Bible to suit his beliefs by taking out all
references to Jesus's divinity, to the virgin birth, and to miracles. His
edited Bible was widely applauded at the time. To Jefferson, a Deist with
a Unitarian bent, the mysteries of Christianity were nothing but
superstition:

"And the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the
supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin will be classed with
the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter. But we
may hope that the dawn of reason and freedom of thought in these United
States will do away with all this artificial scaffolding, and restore to
us the primitive and genuine doctrines of this the most venerated
reformer of human errors." -- Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Adams,
April 11, 1823

To Jefferson, Christianity was a set of ideals larded with absurd
superstitions. He admired Jesus but thought that Christians were absurd.
Likewise to many of the Deists of the time; the intellectuals of
late-Enlightenment Europe and America. And they were the ones who
incorporated the Enlightenment principles -- founded on an abstract idea
of "nature" and "natural rights," most definitely NOT Christian
principles until Christianity adopted them in the decades to follow --
into our Constitution, our Declaration of Independence, and our Bill of
Rights.

God was thrown in occasionally to keep the lid on. g

--
Ed Huntress

Jefferson, the man that wrote "separation of church and state" attended
church in Congress the following Sunday. He also gave government money to
missionaries. You're liberal mis-education isn't serving you well.
There's a book out about liberal lies you probably learned in school, may
help.

Quotes of the founding fathers, I'll bet they didn't teach these in
liberal schools.

snip

The difference between my schools and yours, Roger, is the parts they
snipped out in yours. Much of what you quote, if you read the full context,
referred not to Christian religion but (in Jefferson's case, for example) to
Jesus's philosophy. As I said, half of them were Deists -- including
Jefferson.

Here are some of the things they apparently snipped out of the history they
taught you in Sunday school. You'll note that these mostly come from private
correspondence. As politicians, they were politically more diplomatic in
their public speeches. Then, as now, expressing disbelief in Christian
principles could really rile up some segments of society:

===============================================

Regarding what the Founders thought, Adams as President signed a treaty with
Tripoli in 1797, which had been written when Washington was President and
Adams presided over the Senate, which says: "The government of the United
States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion."

Jefferson, in a letter to William Short:

"I have examined all the known superstitions of the world, and I do not find
in our particular superstition of Christianity one redeeming feature. They
are all alike founded on fables and mythology. Millions of innocent men,
women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt,
tortured, fined and imprisoned. What has been the effect of this coercion?
To make one half the world fools and the other half hypocrites; to support
roguery and error all over the earth."

(Gee, I guess *he* didn't write his parts based on Christian principles, eh?
g)

Jefferson, as I said, was a Deist who admired Jesus's philosophy. As for
Christianity and Christian principles...well, the letter to Short lays it
out pretty well. Jefferson considered himself a "true" Christian in the
sense that he believed deeply in the teachings of Jesus, although not in his
divinity or his ability to perform miracles. And he thought that the idea
that Jesus was the son of God was nonsense. He considered Jesus to be our
greatest philosopher, and all of the trappings that had been attached to his
life, which became the religion Christianity and which fills much of the New
Testament, Jefferson called "a dunghill." Jefferson again:

"Christianity...(has become) the most perverted system that ever shone on
man. ...Rogueries, absurdities and untruths were perpetrated upon the
teachings of Jesus by a large band of dupes and importers led by Paul, the
first great corrupter of the teaching of Jesus."

That wouldn't stop him from attending church, however. He loved the parts
about Jesus's actual life. And the church was the major social gathering
place. He just had very low regard for the religion itself.

How about James Madison? He authored most of the Constitution, more than a
third of the Federalist Papers, and almost all of the Bill of Rights. He's a
good example of using caution in public statement. In his "A Memorial and
Remonstrance", written in 1785, he mostly attacks the clergy. Blame it all
on the leaders. g But in private, in a letter to William Bradford in 1774,
he didn't pull punches: "Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind
and unfits it for every noble enterprise," he said.

In an 1803 letter objecting to the use of government land for churches,
Madison wrote: "The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep
forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of
Europe in blood for centuries."

Madison, like Jefferson, had a very low regard for the Christian religions.
Washington hardly mentioned them, and never mentioned Jesus, or hardly ever
Christianity, in his writings. According to his biographers, he was a
hard-nosed Deist.

Franklin? Maybe this made it through your Sunday school education filter, or
maybe not:

". . . Some books against Deism fell into my hands. . . It happened that
they wrought an effect on me quite contrary to what was intended by them;
for the arguments of the Deists, which were quoted to be refuted, appeared
to me much stronger than the refutations; in short, I soon became a thorough
Deist."

He grew quite adamant about it in later years: "In the affairs of the world,
men are saved, not by faith, but by the lack of it."

"The affairs of men" was what they were dealing with in constructing our
form of government, and they went to great pains to keep it separate from
religion. All in all, Roger, your quotes paint a very misleading picture,
partly because they don't acknowledge the many contrary writings of the
Founders, and partly because they give the impression that the "God" they
talk about is always the personal God of Christianity. More often it is the
Creator, the God as Deism sees it. And the God of Deism is a very impersonal
God.

Maybe they filtered out Deism in Sunday school, too. Or perhaps they lumped
it with witchcraft and Satanism. If so, you can fill out some of the
truncated fable you've been fed by looking into it. Wikipedia does a pretty
good job of it, in a sort of Reader's Digest version:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deism

Maybe, like Franklin, it will convert you, too. d8-)

--
Ed Huntress

OT - Judeo-Christian nation?"

"RogerN" wrote in message

You're liberal mis-education isn't serving you well.
LOL

OT - Judeo-Christian nation?"

"Ed Huntress" wrote in message
...

"RogerN" wrote in message
m...

"Ed Huntress" wrote in message
...

"cavelamb" wrote in message
...

Congressman Forbes asks the questions "Did America ever consider itself
a Judeo-Christian nation?"
and
"If America was once a Judeo-Christian nation, when did it cease to
be?" on the floor of the US House.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpQOCvthw-o

--

Here's some other info on Thomas Jefferson you didn't mention. I realize he
wasn't a real Christian, but he certainly did much that would upset the ACLU
based on "separation of church and state".
a.. "Thomas Jefferson was raised in an Anglican family.
b.. He went to a Christian school and was taught by Christian pastors.

c.. Jefferson attended church regularly his whole life.
d.. As an adult he served on the Vestry of the Anglican church.
e.. He attended the Presbyterian, Methodist, and Baptist churches.
f.. Jefferson regularly tithed to the church.
g.. While Washington & Adams ended their Presidential Papers with "In the
Year of our Lord", Jefferson ended his Presidential Papers with "In the year
of our Lord Christ 18__".
h.. As President he attended the largest church in the nation which held
their services in the House Chambers of the Capitol Building in Washington
D.C.
i.. Jefferson was not pleased with the music, so he ordered the Marine
Band to come to church on Sundays.
Some of Jefferson's actions as president.

a.. Promoted legislative and military chaplains.
b.. Established a national seal using a biblical symbol.
c.. Included the word "God" in our national motto.
d.. Established official days of fasting and prayer at the state level.
e.. Punished Sabbath breakers.
f.. Punished marriages contrary to biblical law.
g.. Punished irreverent soldiers.
h.. Protected the property of churches.
i.. Required that oaths be phrased by the words "So help me God" and be
sworn on the Bible.
j.. Granted land to Christian schools.
k.. Allowed government property and facilities to be used for worship.
l.. Used the Bible and nondenominational religious instruction in the
public schools. He was involved in three different school districts, and the
plan in each required that the Bible be taught in our public schools.
m.. Allowed and encouraged clergymen to hold public office.
n.. Funded religious books for public libraries.
o.. Funded salaries for missionaries.
p.. Exempted churches from taxation.
q.. Established professional schools of theology.
r.. Wrote treaties requiring other nations to guarantee religious freedom,
including religious speeches and prayer in official ceremonies.
You will notice that in many cases Federal Treasury money was used to
support churches.

Engraved on the walls of the Jefferson Memorial in Washington D.C. are the
words of our third President: "God who gave us life gave us liberty. Can the
liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these
liberties are the gift of God?"

Jefferson wrote this warning on September 6, 1819: "The Constitution . . .
is a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary, which they may twist
and shape into any form they please."

It is very evident from the record that Thomas Jefferson believed in God and
felt that religion should play an important role in the government, and that
government could and should support churches. Would Jefferson who added the
word "God" to the National Motto, agree with the 9th Circuit Court, who
stated that the word "God" in the Pledge of Alegance is Unconstitutional?
The War that the Supreme Court has launched on people of faith, Jefferson
would be totally against."

OT - Judeo-Christian nation?"

"RogerN" wrote in message
m...

"Ed Huntress" wrote in message
...

"RogerN" wrote in message
m...

"Ed Huntress" wrote in message
...

"cavelamb" wrote in message
...

Congressman Forbes asks the questions "Did America ever consider
itself a Judeo-Christian nation?"
and
"If America was once a Judeo-Christian nation, when did it cease to
be?" on the floor of the US House.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpQOCvthw-o

--

Here's some other info on Thomas Jefferson you didn't mention.

No, this isn't "info." It's mostly "misinfo," taken out of context, clipped
to give incorrect impressions, and undocumented. It's doubtful that you have
any idea where it came from or which parts are true and untrue, because you
don't check your sources. If the advocates cram it down your throat, you
just swallow it whole.

This would be very tedious to track down all of it, but I'll give a few
examples, documented from legitimate sources:

I realize he wasn't a real Christian, but he certainly did much that would
upset the ACLU based on "separation of church and state".

snip

Some of Jefferson's actions as president.

a.. Promoted legislative and military chaplains.
b.. Established a national seal using a biblical symbol.

Show us where in the Bible the "all-seeing eye" is used. It's an Egyptian
symbol, adopted by the Freemasons and associated with the Deistic creator.
It has nothing whatsoever to do with the Bible.

c.. Included the word "God" in our national motto.

The de facto national motto, established in the 1780s, was "E Pluribus
Unum." ("From many, one.") "In God We Trust" was established as the national
motto in 1956.

More crap from your unreliable sources, Roger.

d.. Established official days of fasting and prayer at the state level.

[Jefferson] "refused to appoint days of fasting or thanksgiving, on the
ground that to do so would be indirectly to assume an authority over
religious exercises, which the Constitution had expressly forbidden." [_Life
of Thomas Jefferson_, James Parton, Osgood, 1874]

Still more crap.

e.. Punished Sabbath breakers.

Read the law, co-authored by Madison. You'll be surprised at what it was
about.

f.. Punished marriages contrary to biblical law.

"A Bill Annulling Marriages Prohibited by the Levitical Law...". Leviticus
18. You can't marry your mother, your sister, your brother's sister, your
dead wife's sister, or animals, clean or unclean. It could have been written
by the CDC. g

g.. Punished irreverent soldiers.
h.. Protected the property of churches.
i.. Required that oaths be phrased by the words "So help me God" and be
sworn on the Bible.

Nope. You're referring to the Judiciary Act of 1789, which contains the
words "Which words, so help me God, shall be omitted in all cases where an
affirmation is admitted instead of an oath." It neither required a Bible,
nor required that it be sworn. A non-believer could simply "affirm."

That's what religious freedom does for you.

I think you can see the pattern, Roger. Jefferson was a Deist who believed
in religious freedom. So were most of the Founders. Several of them openly
disparaged the Christianity of the day, including its "principles." I've
quoted some words about it for you, from Jefferson, Franklin, and Madison.
I've been merciful in leaving out the words of Thomas Paine. g And they
said in several instances that our Constitution is not based on them.

Jefferson also said that the common law had no relation to Christianity. You
probably haven't looked, but you can spend a lot of time trying to connect
biblical Christian "principles" to the idea that men are equal before the
law (each age and type of man, and woman, was worth a different number of
shekels, as explained in Leviticus); you won't find free speech or freedom
of religion in there; you'll look long and hard to find the idea that men
are endowed with an inalienable right to pursue happiness.

It just isn't there. But you'll have no trouble at all finding those ideas
in the writings of the Enlightenment philosophers.

As I said, the whole process really was reversed from what the Christian
apologists would have you believe. The Enlightenment was essentially a
Deistic system, in which a Creator set the clockwork running, established
"natural laws" (which are antithetical to much of Christian belief), and
then got out of the way, leaving it up to men to decide their own individual
fate. After they die, they get a new lease with much more favorable terms.
g

Don't swallow that crap they're feeding you. There is an entire historical
society at the Univ. of Virginia and Monticello that has documented
Jefferson's writings. Go for the originals, not the interpretations by those
people that Jefferson most despised -- the ministers of the church.

--
Ed Huntress

OT - Judeo-Christian nation?"

"Ed Huntress" wrote in message
...

"RogerN" wrote in message
m...

Don't swallow that crap they're feeding you. There is an entire historical
society at the Univ. of Virginia and Monticello that has documented
Jefferson's writings. Go for the originals, not the interpretations by
those people that Jefferson most despised -- the ministers of the church.

--
Ed Huntress

So all the pro Christian quotes from the founding fathers was not the true
beliefs of the founding fathers, just something to sound good to the people
of the nation? Sounds like they must have been speaking to a Christian
Nation, just like Obama quoted from the "Holy Koran" when in the middle East
speaking to Islamic nations.

RogerN

OT - Judeo-Christian nation?"

"RogerN" wrote in message
...

"Ed Huntress" wrote in message
...

"RogerN" wrote in message
m...

Don't swallow that crap they're feeding you. There is an entire
historical society at the Univ. of Virginia and Monticello that has
documented Jefferson's writings. Go for the originals, not the
interpretations by those people that Jefferson most despised -- the
ministers of the church.

--
Ed Huntress

So all the pro Christian quotes from the founding fathers was not the true
beliefs of the founding fathers, just something to sound good to the
people of the nation?

In a lot of cases, those quotes misrepresent the situation by selective
extraction from their context. And the quotes I provided are equally
accurate, at least; since I can document all of them, they're probably more
accurate.

How do you account for the apparent conflict? If you actually study what the
Deists of that era were all about, it wouldn't be such a mystery. They
believed in God; they just didn't believe in a personal God, or in the
trinity, or the divinity of Christ -- even those who, like Jefferson,
admired his philosophy in the abstract, even while mocking Christianity as a
religion, and as a set of ethical and behavioral principles.

Sounds like they must have been speaking to a Christian Nation, just like
Obama quoted from the "Holy Koran" when in the middle East speaking to
Islamic nations.

Probably so. That's politics for you. But that's not where we got the ideas
of free speech, freedom of religion, equality under the law, democratic
government, etc., etc., etc. In other words, Christian "principles" had
nothing much to do with our founding or our Constitution. But Enlightenment
principles had everything to do with both of them. Christianity muscled in
starting about three decades later, when it started to adopt Enlightement
principles as its own.

You'll notice, however, that Christian leaders never make a real effort to
resolve American Constitutional principles with the Bible, or with the
Bible-derived teachings of Christianity. That's because they can't.

--
Ed Huntress

OT - Judeo-Christian nation?"

"Proctologically Violated©®" wrote in message
...

"cavelamb" wrote in message
...

Congressman Forbes asks the questions "Did America ever consider itself
a
Judeo-Christian nation?"
and
"If America was once a Judeo-Christian nation, when did it cease to be?"
on the floor of the US House.

And the Q is, or should be, irrelevant. If there were total separation of
church and state, as there should be.

The real Q is, When did America become an effing irrational nation, with
media and "entertainment" that could scramble the brain of a dead person?

It started in the early 80s, when Reagan was elected and conservatives
started running the country. Except for a few years under Clinton the
country has been on a downhill slide ever since. Our downward spiral
coincides with the republican ascendancy and the domination by business
interests over everything else.

Hawke

OT - Judeo-Christian nation?"

Roughly half of what he said is historically incorrect.

The USA was founded on Enlightenment principles, not "Judeo-Christian"
principles. At the time of the Declaration's signing, there was no
principle of individual rights in Christianity. There was only
obligation
and obedience. The individual got his just due and his individual
recognition in the afterlife. On Earth, he was a servant.

The Enlightenment, although its thinkers often couched their words in
religious terms (in Locke's case, to avoid threatened prosecution; in
Jefferson's case, for the sake of politics), was a contradiction of
religious doctrine and was based on the individual dignity of man. No
such concept was present in Christianity at the time the country was
founded.

The truth is more the reverse, that religion adopted Enlightenment
principles, starting late in the 18th century. In the US, Enlightenment
principles were tossed into the blender with a revolutionary
Christianity
that rejected the whole church structure in favor of a new idea of
man's
role in the universe, which was mostly the same idea as that of Locke,
Hume, and the other primary thinkers of the English Enlightenment.

One curiosity is the use of the term "Creator" rather than "God" in the
Declaration of Independence. That fits well with the fact that roughly
half of the Founders were not really Christians at all, but Deists.
Thus,
Jefferson "edited" the Bible to suit his beliefs by taking out all
references to Jesus's divinity, to the virgin birth, and to miracles.
His
edited Bible was widely applauded at the time. To Jefferson, a Deist
with
a Unitarian bent, the mysteries of Christianity were nothing but
superstition:

"And the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the
supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin will be classed
with
the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter. But we
may hope that the dawn of reason and freedom of thought in these United
States will do away with all this artificial scaffolding, and restore
to
us the primitive and genuine doctrines of this the most venerated
reformer of human errors." -- Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Adams,
April 11, 1823

To Jefferson, Christianity was a set of ideals larded with absurd
superstitions. He admired Jesus but thought that Christians were
absurd.
Likewise to many of the Deists of the time; the intellectuals of
late-Enlightenment Europe and America. And they were the ones who
incorporated the Enlightenment principles -- founded on an abstract
idea
of "nature" and "natural rights," most definitely NOT Christian
principles until Christianity adopted them in the decades to follow --
into our Constitution, our Declaration of Independence, and our Bill of
Rights.

God was thrown in occasionally to keep the lid on. g

--
Ed Huntress

Jefferson, the man that wrote "separation of church and state" attended
church in Congress the following Sunday. He also gave government money
to
missionaries. You're liberal mis-education isn't serving you well.
There's a book out about liberal lies you probably learned in school,
may
help.

Quotes of the founding fathers, I'll bet they didn't teach these in
liberal schools.

snip

The difference between my schools and yours, Roger, is the parts they
snipped out in yours. Much of what you quote, if you read the full
context,
referred not to Christian religion but (in Jefferson's case, for example)
to
Jesus's philosophy. As I said, half of them were Deists -- including
Jefferson.

Here are some of the things they apparently snipped out of the history
they
taught you in Sunday school. You'll note that these mostly come from
private
correspondence. As politicians, they were politically more diplomatic in
their public speeches. Then, as now, expressing disbelief in Christian
principles could really rile up some segments of society:

===============================================

Regarding what the Founders thought, Adams as President signed a treaty
with
Tripoli in 1797, which had been written when Washington was President and
Adams presided over the Senate, which says: "The government of the United
States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion."

Jefferson, in a letter to William Short:

"I have examined all the known superstitions of the world, and I do not
find
in our particular superstition of Christianity one redeeming feature. They
are all alike founded on fables and mythology. Millions of innocent men,
women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been
burnt,
tortured, fined and imprisoned. What has been the effect of this coercion?
To make one half the world fools and the other half hypocrites; to support
roguery and error all over the earth."

(Gee, I guess *he* didn't write his parts based on Christian principles,
eh?
g)

Jefferson, as I said, was a Deist who admired Jesus's philosophy. As for
Christianity and Christian principles...well, the letter to Short lays it
out pretty well. Jefferson considered himself a "true" Christian in the
sense that he believed deeply in the teachings of Jesus, although not in
his
divinity or his ability to perform miracles. And he thought that the idea
that Jesus was the son of God was nonsense. He considered Jesus to be our
greatest philosopher, and all of the trappings that had been attached to
his
life, which became the religion Christianity and which fills much of the
New
Testament, Jefferson called "a dunghill." Jefferson again:

"Christianity...(has become) the most perverted system that ever shone on
man. ...Rogueries, absurdities and untruths were perpetrated upon the
teachings of Jesus by a large band of dupes and importers led by Paul, the
first great corrupter of the teaching of Jesus."

That wouldn't stop him from attending church, however. He loved the parts
about Jesus's actual life. And the church was the major social gathering
place. He just had very low regard for the religion itself.

How about James Madison? He authored most of the Constitution, more than a
third of the Federalist Papers, and almost all of the Bill of Rights. He's
a
good example of using caution in public statement. In his "A Memorial and
Remonstrance", written in 1785, he mostly attacks the clergy. Blame it all
on the leaders. g But in private, in a letter to William Bradford in
1774,
he didn't pull punches: "Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the
mind
and unfits it for every noble enterprise," he said.

In an 1803 letter objecting to the use of government land for churches,
Madison wrote: "The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep
forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of
Europe in blood for centuries."

Madison, like Jefferson, had a very low regard for the Christian
religions.
Washington hardly mentioned them, and never mentioned Jesus, or hardly
ever
Christianity, in his writings. According to his biographers, he was a
hard-nosed Deist.

Franklin? Maybe this made it through your Sunday school education filter,
or
maybe not:

". . . Some books against Deism fell into my hands. . . It happened that
they wrought an effect on me quite contrary to what was intended by them;
for the arguments of the Deists, which were quoted to be refuted, appeared
to me much stronger than the refutations; in short, I soon became a
thorough
Deist."

He grew quite adamant about it in later years: "In the affairs of the
world,
men are saved, not by faith, but by the lack of it."

"The affairs of men" was what they were dealing with in constructing our
form of government, and they went to great pains to keep it separate from
religion. All in all, Roger, your quotes paint a very misleading picture,
partly because they don't acknowledge the many contrary writings of the
Founders, and partly because they give the impression that the "God" they
talk about is always the personal God of Christianity. More often it is
the
Creator, the God as Deism sees it. And the God of Deism is a very
impersonal
God.

Maybe they filtered out Deism in Sunday school, too. Or perhaps they
lumped
it with witchcraft and Satanism. If so, you can fill out some of the
truncated fable you've been fed by looking into it. Wikipedia does a
pretty
good job of it, in a sort of Reader's Digest version:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deism

Maybe, like Franklin, it will convert you, too. d8-)

See, even back then the smart people knew how stupid the devout Christians
were. The only difference between then and now is that deep down most
people, especially smart people, understand how stupid it is to believe in
religion (superstition). You can't help but wonder how many hypocrites are
pretending to believe in the Bible just to get ahead or along.

Hawke

OT - Judeo-Christian nation?"

On Jun 20, 5:55*pm, "Ed Huntress" wrote:

...But that's not where we got the ideas
of free speech, freedom of religion, equality under the law, democratic
government, etc., etc., etc.
--
Ed Huntress

It seems we can't admit that Western democracy came from the Vikings.
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/...281235/Iceland

jsw

OT - Judeo-Christian nation?"

"Jim Wilkins" wrote in message
...
On Jun 20, 5:55 pm, "Ed Huntress" wrote:

...But that's not where we got the ideas
of free speech, freedom of religion, equality under the law, democratic
government, etc., etc., etc.
--
Ed Huntress

It seems we can't admit that Western democracy came from the Vikings.
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/...281235/Iceland

jsw

And here, I thought they said it was the Iroquois. That is, when they
weren't murdering the Lenape.

Maybe it was Martians.

--
Ed Huntress

OT - Judeo-Christian nation?"

In article ,
"Ed Huntress" wrote:

"Jim Wilkins" wrote in message
...
On Jun 20, 5:55 pm, "Ed Huntress" wrote:

...But that's not where we got the ideas
of free speech, freedom of religion, equality under the law, democratic
government, etc., etc., etc.
--
Ed Huntress

It seems we can't admit that Western democracy came from the Vikings.
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/...281235/Iceland

jsw

And here, I thought they said it was the Iroquois. That is, when they
weren't murdering the Lenape.

Maybe it was Martians.

Don't blame us! We didn't have a darn thing to do with it. We're a hive
mind. Such problems never come up.

You guys broke away 3.5 million yarons ago and you've been nothing but
trouble ever since.

Love,
The Martian Borgprecursors, happily living in the Hollow Earth.

--
Ed Huntress

OT - Judeo-Christian nation?"

"John Husvar" wrote in message
...
In article ,
"Ed Huntress" wrote:

"Jim Wilkins" wrote in message
...
On Jun 20, 5:55 pm, "Ed Huntress" wrote:

...But that's not where we got the ideas
of free speech, freedom of religion, equality under the law, democratic
government, etc., etc., etc.
--
Ed Huntress

It seems we can't admit that Western democracy came from the Vikings.
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/...281235/Iceland

jsw

And here, I thought they said it was the Iroquois. That is, when they
weren't murdering the Lenape.

Maybe it was Martians.

Don't blame us! We didn't have a darn thing to do with it. We're a hive
mind. Such problems never come up.

Gee. I thought you were a Yooper. Yoopers are from...Neptune, isn't it? g

You guys broke away 3.5 million yarons ago and you've been nothing but
trouble ever since.

My ancestors were fine, founding Americans. My dad said that our coat of
arms showed a man running a horse out of a barn with another man chasing him
with a shotgun. It was kind of artsy.

Love,
The Martian Borgprecursors, happily living in the Hollow Earth.

Do Yoopers paint their houses yet? They're really good at keep their
property tax ratings down. d8-)

--
Ed Huntress

OT - Judeo-Christian nation?"

On Jun 19, 10:31*pm, "RogerN" wrote:

If you want some facts that liberals don't like, the library of congress has
a couple of pages online.

http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/religion/rel06.html

http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/religion/rel06-2.html

What exactly from those pages do you contend that "liberals don't
like" ?

Perhaps the most obvious questionable issue would be the services held
in the house chamber, however it's not clear to me that this could not
be done in a way that would pass constitutional muster today. The
apparent variety of services held then might not be enough today -
today you would probably have to provide equal access not just to
deistic unitarians and their sacred coffee urn, but to non-religious
groups as well.

Generally, what you seem to have found is evidence of a growing nation
experimenting with the balance between a controversial subject such as
religion in general, in specific, in public, and in private. In
other words, doing exactly what "liberals" would hope it would.

OT - Judeo-Christian nation?"

"Hawke" wrote in message
...

"RogerN" wrote in message
...

"Ed Huntress" wrote in message
...

"RogerN" wrote in message
m...

Don't swallow that crap they're feeding you. There is an entire
historical
society at the Univ. of Virginia and Monticello that has documented
Jefferson's writings. Go for the originals, not the interpretations by
those people that Jefferson most despised -- the ministers of the
church.

--
Ed Huntress

So all the pro Christian quotes from the founding fathers was not the
true
beliefs of the founding fathers, just something to sound good to the
people
of the nation? Sounds like they must have been speaking to a Christian
Nation, just like Obama quoted from the "Holy Koran" when in the middle
East
speaking to Islamic nations.

RogerN

You ought to be thanking Ed for setting you straight, correcting your
misinterpretations, and informing you with the facts. But I know you
won't.
You'll just go back to your Bible for comfort and will be silently cursing
Ed for not agreeing with you.

Hawke

Ed had some quotes that with his explanation contradict the actions of the
founding fathers. I pasted many quotes that were backed up by the actions
of the founding fathers. Ed thinks his understanding is correct, there is
no point in arguing with him. He could also claim the Earth is flat, no use
in arguing that either. I pasted quotes and actions, he pasted quotes with
spin, believe what you want.

RogerN

OT - Judeo-Christian nation?"

"RogerN" wrote in message
...

"Hawke" wrote in message
...

"RogerN" wrote in message
...

"Ed Huntress" wrote in message
...

"RogerN" wrote in message
m...

Don't swallow that crap they're feeding you. There is an entire
historical
society at the Univ. of Virginia and Monticello that has documented
Jefferson's writings. Go for the originals, not the interpretations by
those people that Jefferson most despised -- the ministers of the
church.

--
Ed Huntress

So all the pro Christian quotes from the founding fathers was not the
true
beliefs of the founding fathers, just something to sound good to the
people
of the nation? Sounds like they must have been speaking to a Christian
Nation, just like Obama quoted from the "Holy Koran" when in the middle
East
speaking to Islamic nations.

RogerN

You ought to be thanking Ed for setting you straight, correcting your
misinterpretations, and informing you with the facts. But I know you
won't.
You'll just go back to your Bible for comfort and will be silently
cursing
Ed for not agreeing with you.

Hawke

Ed had some quotes that with his explanation contradict the actions of the
founding fathers. I pasted many quotes that were backed up by the actions
of the founding fathers. Ed thinks his understanding is correct, there is
no point in arguing with him. He could also claim the Earth is flat, no
use in arguing that either. I pasted quotes and actions, he pasted quotes
with spin, believe what you want.

RogerN

You can make this real simple, Roger. The question was whether the US and
the US Constitution were founded on Christian principles. Just consider the
major principles of our government at the time of the founding, such as
equality under the law, democratic government, civilian control of the
military, and especially free speech and freedom of religion, and ask
yourself where, in 18th-century Christianity, such ideas appear.

They don't appear anywhere in Christian doctrine. Where they *do* appear is
in Enlightenment principles. Several decades later, Christians adopted them
in a confusing and sometimes contradictory way. But they were not
"Christian" principles.

If you can find examples of 18th-century Christian doctrine that support,
say, freedom of religion, we're all ears.

--
Ed Huntress

OT - Judeo-Christian nation?"

"Ed Huntress" wrote in message
...

"RogerN" wrote in message
...

"Hawke" wrote in message
...

"RogerN" wrote in message
...

"Ed Huntress" wrote in message
...

"RogerN" wrote in message
m...

Don't swallow that crap they're feeding you. There is an entire
historical
society at the Univ. of Virginia and Monticello that has documented
Jefferson's writings. Go for the originals, not the interpretations
by
those people that Jefferson most despised -- the ministers of the
church.

--
Ed Huntress

So all the pro Christian quotes from the founding fathers was not the
true
beliefs of the founding fathers, just something to sound good to the
people
of the nation? Sounds like they must have been speaking to a Christian
Nation, just like Obama quoted from the "Holy Koran" when in the middle
East
speaking to Islamic nations.

RogerN

You ought to be thanking Ed for setting you straight, correcting your
misinterpretations, and informing you with the facts. But I know you
won't.
You'll just go back to your Bible for comfort and will be silently
cursing
Ed for not agreeing with you.

Hawke

Ed had some quotes that with his explanation contradict the actions of
the founding fathers. I pasted many quotes that were backed up by the
actions of the founding fathers. Ed thinks his understanding is correct,
there is no point in arguing with him. He could also claim the Earth is
flat, no use in arguing that either. I pasted quotes and actions, he
pasted quotes with spin, believe what you want.

RogerN

You can make this real simple, Roger. The question was whether the US and
the US Constitution were founded on Christian principles. Just consider
the major principles of our government at the time of the founding, such
as equality under the law, democratic government, civilian control of the
military, and especially free speech and freedom of religion, and ask
yourself where, in 18th-century Christianity, such ideas appear.

They don't appear anywhere in Christian doctrine. Where they *do* appear
is in Enlightenment principles. Several decades later, Christians adopted
them in a confusing and sometimes contradictory way. But they were not
"Christian" principles.

If you can find examples of 18th-century Christian doctrine that support,
say, freedom of religion, we're all ears.

--
Ed Huntress
Ed, you're like a professor who turns the stupidest question into a learning
opportunity for the class. Your replies are enlightening many of us, but
RogerN, he jus don wanna be lerned...

OT - Judeo-Christian nation?"

"Ed Huntress" wrote in message
...

"RogerN" wrote in message
...

"Hawke" wrote in message
...

"RogerN" wrote in message
...

"Ed Huntress" wrote in message
...

"RogerN" wrote in message
m...

Don't swallow that crap they're feeding you. There is an entire
historical
society at the Univ. of Virginia and Monticello that has documented
Jefferson's writings. Go for the originals, not the interpretations
by
those people that Jefferson most despised -- the ministers of the
church.

--
Ed Huntress

So all the pro Christian quotes from the founding fathers was not the
true
beliefs of the founding fathers, just something to sound good to the
people
of the nation? Sounds like they must have been speaking to a Christian
Nation, just like Obama quoted from the "Holy Koran" when in the middle
East
speaking to Islamic nations.

RogerN

You ought to be thanking Ed for setting you straight, correcting your
misinterpretations, and informing you with the facts. But I know you
won't.
You'll just go back to your Bible for comfort and will be silently
cursing
Ed for not agreeing with you.

Hawke

Ed had some quotes that with his explanation contradict the actions of
the founding fathers. I pasted many quotes that were backed up by the
actions of the founding fathers. Ed thinks his understanding is correct,
there is no point in arguing with him. He could also claim the Earth is
flat, no use in arguing that either. I pasted quotes and actions, he
pasted quotes with spin, believe what you want.

RogerN

You can make this real simple, Roger. The question was whether the US and
the US Constitution were founded on Christian principles. Just consider
the major principles of our government at the time of the founding, such
as equality under the law, democratic government, civilian control of the
military, and especially free speech and freedom of religion, and ask
yourself where, in 18th-century Christianity, such ideas appear.

They don't appear anywhere in Christian doctrine. Where they *do* appear
is in Enlightenment principles. Several decades later, Christians adopted
them in a confusing and sometimes contradictory way. But they were not
"Christian" principles.

If you can find examples of 18th-century Christian doctrine that support,
say, freedom of religion, we're all ears.

--
Ed Huntress

In Christianity from the beginning their has been different denominations
with different ideas on many details. The Bible doesn't approve of false
religions of worshipping false God's but I find zero examples of Jesus
cramming his teachings down anyone's throats or trying to force them to his
"religion".

All I can say is that Thomas Jefferson wrote a letter containing the words
"separation of Church and State", two days later he was attending Christian
church in a government owned building. He also supported Christian
missionaries with government money for the work they were doing among the
Indians. Today if he were to do such a thing the ACLU would have him in
court. I don't have a way to go back in time to take a poll to determine
everyone's beliefs and motivations but I find zero evidence supporting that
they believed in any other God than the God of the Bible.

RogerN

OT - Judeo-Christian nation?"

"RogerN" wrote in message
m...

"Ed Huntress" wrote in message
...

"RogerN" wrote in message
...

"Hawke" wrote in message
...

"RogerN" wrote in message
...

"Ed Huntress" wrote in message
...

"RogerN" wrote in message
m...

Don't swallow that crap they're feeding you. There is an entire
historical
society at the Univ. of Virginia and Monticello that has documented
Jefferson's writings. Go for the originals, not the interpretations
by
those people that Jefferson most despised -- the ministers of the
church.

--
Ed Huntress

So all the pro Christian quotes from the founding fathers was not the
true
beliefs of the founding fathers, just something to sound good to the
people
of the nation? Sounds like they must have been speaking to a
Christian
Nation, just like Obama quoted from the "Holy Koran" when in the
middle
East
speaking to Islamic nations.

RogerN

You ought to be thanking Ed for setting you straight, correcting your
misinterpretations, and informing you with the facts. But I know you
won't.
You'll just go back to your Bible for comfort and will be silently
cursing
Ed for not agreeing with you.

Hawke

Ed had some quotes that with his explanation contradict the actions of
the founding fathers. I pasted many quotes that were backed up by the
actions of the founding fathers. Ed thinks his understanding is
correct, there is no point in arguing with him. He could also claim the
Earth is flat, no use in arguing that either. I pasted quotes and
actions, he pasted quotes with spin, believe what you want.

RogerN

You can make this real simple, Roger. The question was whether the US and
the US Constitution were founded on Christian principles. Just consider
the major principles of our government at the time of the founding, such
as equality under the law, democratic government, civilian control of the
military, and especially free speech and freedom of religion, and ask
yourself where, in 18th-century Christianity, such ideas appear.

They don't appear anywhere in Christian doctrine. Where they *do* appear
is in Enlightenment principles. Several decades later, Christians adopted
them in a confusing and sometimes contradictory way. But they were not
"Christian" principles.

If you can find examples of 18th-century Christian doctrine that support,
say, freedom of religion, we're all ears.

--
Ed Huntress

In Christianity from the beginning their has been different denominations
with different ideas on many details. The Bible doesn't approve of false
religions of worshipping false God's but I find zero examples of Jesus
cramming his teachings down anyone's throats or trying to force them to
his "religion".

It's a far reach from that claim to Jefferson's statement in _Notes on the
State of Virginia_, "The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts
only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbour
to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor
breaks my leg." Neither the old nor the new testament shows much tolerance
for 20 gods, at least 19 of which must be "false Gods." We won't complicate
this with the trinity-versus-unitarian argument. Say, then, there were at
least 17 false Gods. g

If you've ever read Jefferson's _Notes..._ (his only book), you'll see that
most of his comments about religion refer to the intolerant practices of the
Christian church in colonial times, and the corrections to those practices
that must be made in the new government.

All I can say is that Thomas Jefferson wrote a letter containing the words
"separation of Church and State", two days later he was attending
Christian church in a government owned building.

If that's all you can say, what does it have to do with the idea that the US
Constitution was founded on "Christian principles"? It seems to have nothing
to do with it. Rather, it seems to be what cs_posting was talking about when
he said, very accurately, IMO:

"Generally, what you seem to have found is evidence of a growing nation
experimenting with the balance between a controversial subject such as
religion in general, in specific, in public, and in private. In other
words, doing exactly what "liberals" would hope it would."

What the Founders constructed was a government that allowed people to follow
their religious consciences. Whether a service should be conducted in a
government-owned building is a side issue. The point was, the government was
to stay out of anything to do with religion itself. We've grown increasingly
attentive to that principle over time. And a wall of separation, which both
Madison and Jefferson advocated, definitely was NOT a "Christian principle"
as it was understood at the time.

He also supported Christian missionaries with government money for the
work they were doing among the Indians. Today if he were to do such a
thing the ACLU would have him in court. I don't have a way to go back in
time to take a poll to determine everyone's beliefs and motivations but I
find zero evidence supporting that they believed in any other God than the
God of the Bible.

We aren't talking about what they believed in. There is plenty of evidence
to show that it was an ambiguous set of beliefs, firm only in the first
principle of Deism and with a mixture of figurative and literal references
to Jesus and to Christianity, which they viewed as separate subjects.

We're talking about the "principles" upon which our government was founded.
You still haven't shown us any principles drawn from Christianity that
support equality under the law, democratic government, civilian control of
the military, free speech, and freedom of religion.

--
Ed Huntress

OT - Judeo-Christian nation?"

On Jun 25, 6:46*am, "RogerN" wrote:

All I can say is that Thomas Jefferson wrote a letter containing the words
"separation of Church and State", two days later he was attending Christian
church in a government owned building.

Your mistake is in seeing these things as a contradictory. The
nascent idea of separation of church and state in that era referred
specifically to preventing the federal government from establishing a
specific national religion or religious requirement. And that is not
what was being done in these services, instead they seem to have
opened the doors to a wide variety of different perspectives,
something that if done right (including non-religious ones) could
probably still pass constitutional muster today.

*He also supported Christian
missionaries with government money for the work they were doing among the
Indians.

Ever consider they might have been the only people willing to tackle
the task of trying to "civilize" the natives? Now history may judge
that the attempt caused a lot of harm reaching to this day, but at
that point in time it seemed like a good project. And this funding is
thus quite explainable as an attempt to leverage the existence of
those with religious zeal as a low-cost way of trying to achieve a
secular national purpose.

*Today if he were to do such a thing the ACLU would have him in
court. *

Depends. If comparable funding were available to religious and purely
social missionaries, if some restrictions were in place (no buying
bibles to hand out with government money, etc) they might be okay with
it. Consider the recent "faith based initiatives" idea -
controversial, but not impossible to implement.

I don't have a way to go back in time to take a poll to determine
everyone's beliefs and motivations but I find zero evidence supporting that
they believed in any other God than the God of the Bible.

Your mistake is in thinking that anyone has suggested otherwise.
Perhaps you are not familiar with the meaning of the word "Deism".
The 11th grade public school definition is the belief in an original
creator who then takes a relatively hands off attitude towards events
on earth. Most deists would consider consider the incumbent cultural
god (biblical god in the american case) to be a larger-than-life myth
built upon this creator.

OT - Judeo-Christian nation?"

In article ,
"Ed Huntress" wrote:

"John Husvar" wrote in message
...
In article ,
"Ed Huntress" wrote:

"Jim Wilkins" wrote in message
...
On Jun 20, 5:55 pm, "Ed Huntress" wrote:

...But that's not where we got the ideas
of free speech, freedom of religion, equality under the law, democratic
government, etc., etc., etc.
--
Ed Huntress

It seems we can't admit that Western democracy came from the Vikings.
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/...281235/Iceland

jsw

And here, I thought they said it was the Iroquois. That is, when they
weren't murdering the Lenape.

Maybe it was Martians.

Don't blame us! We didn't have a darn thing to do with it. We're a hive
mind. Such problems never come up.

Gee. I thought you were a Yooper. Yoopers are from...Neptune, isn't it? g

Uranus -- or is it Theranus? Anyway, one street over.

You guys broke away 3.5 million yarons ago and you've been nothing but
trouble ever since.

My ancestors were fine, founding Americans. My dad said that our coat of
arms showed a man running a horse out of a barn with another man chasing him
with a shotgun. It was kind of artsy.

What's a horse? or a shotgun for that matter?

Love,
The Martian Borgprecursors, happily living in the Hollow Earth.

Do Yoopers paint their houses yet? They're really good at keep their
property tax ratings down. d8-)

Last I/We heard, they don't bother. It just freezes and flakes off
anyway.

--
Ed Huntress

OT - Judeo-Christian nation?"

RogerN wrote:

"Hawke" wrote in message
...

"RogerN" wrote in message
...

"Ed Huntress" wrote in message
...

"RogerN" wrote in message
m...

Don't swallow that crap they're feeding you. There is an entire
historical
society at the Univ. of Virginia and Monticello that has documented
Jefferson's writings. Go for the originals, not the interpretations by
those people that Jefferson most despised -- the ministers of the
church.

--
Ed Huntress

So all the pro Christian quotes from the founding fathers was not the
true
beliefs of the founding fathers, just something to sound good to the
people
of the nation? Sounds like they must have been speaking to a Christian
Nation, just like Obama quoted from the "Holy Koran" when in the middle
East
speaking to Islamic nations.

RogerN

You ought to be thanking Ed for setting you straight, correcting your
misinterpretations, and informing you with the facts. But I know you
won't.
You'll just go back to your Bible for comfort and will be silently cursing
Ed for not agreeing with you.

Hawke

Ed had some quotes that with his explanation contradict the actions of the
founding fathers. I pasted many quotes that were backed up by the actions
of the founding fathers. Ed thinks his understanding is correct, there is
no point in arguing with him. He could also claim the Earth is flat, no use
in arguing that either. I pasted quotes and actions, he pasted quotes with
spin, believe what you want.

RogerN

Copied from another newsgroup:

GOD vs. Science, good argument!

Not that I am introducing religious discussion here on the group, but I
came
across an interesting argument made by a clear thinking student to his
university Professor in class.....

A science professor begins his school year with a lecture to the
students,
"Let me explain the problem science has with religion." The atheist
professor of philosophy pauses before his class and then asks one of his
new
students to stand.

"You're a Christian, aren't you, son?"

"Yes sir," the student says.

"So you believe in God?"

"Absolutely."

"Is God good?"

"Sure! God's good."

"Is God all-powerful? Can God do anything?"

"Yes."

"Are you good or evil?"

"The Bible says I'm evil."

The professor grins knowingly. "Aha! The Bible!" He considers for a
moment.
"Here's one for you. Let's say there's a sick person over here and you
can
cure him. You can do it. Would you help him? Would you try?"

"Yes sir, I would."

"So you're good...!"

"I wouldn't say that."

"But why not say that? You'd help a sick and maimed person if you could.
Most of us would if we could. But God doesn't."

The student does not answer, so the professor continues. "He doesn't,
does
he? My brother was a Christian who died of cancer, even though he prayed
to
Jesus to heal him. How is this Jesus good? Hmmm? Can you answer that
one?"

The student remains silent.

"No, you can't, can you?" the professor says. He takes a sip of water
from a
glass on his desk to give the student time to relax.

"Let's start again, young fella. Is God good?"

"Er...yes," the student says.

"Is Satan good?"

The student doesn't hesitate on this one. "No."

"Then where does Satan come from?"

The student falters. "From God"

"That's right. God made Satan, didn't he? Tell me, son. Is there evil in
this world?"

"Yes, sir."

"Evil's everywhere, isn't it? And God did make everything, correct?"

"Yes."

"So who created evil?" The professor continued, "If God created
everything,
then God created evil, since evil exists, and according to the principle
that our works define who we are, then God is evil."

Again, the student has no answer. "Is there sickness? Immorality?
Hatred?
Ugliness? All these terrible things, do they exist in this world?"

The student squirms on his feet. "Yes."

"So who created them?"

The student does not answer again, so the professor repeats his
question.
"Who created them?" There is still no answer. Suddenly the lecturer
breaks
away to pace in front of the classroom. The class is mesmerized. "Tell
me,"
he continues onto another student. "Do you believe in Jesus Christ,
son?"

The student's voice betrays him and cracks. "Yes, professor, I do."

The old man stops pacing. "Science says you have five senses you use to
identify and observe the world around you. Have you ever seen Jesus?"

"No sir. I've never seen Him."

"Then tell us if you've ever heard your Jesus?"

"No, sir, I have not."

"Have you ever felt your Jesus, tasted your Jesus or smelt your Jesus?
"Have
you ever had any sensory perception of Jesus Christ, or God for that
matter?"

"No, sir, I'm afraid I haven't."

"Yet you still believe in him?"

"Yes."

"According to the rules of empirical, testable, demonstrable protocol,
science says your God doesn't exist. What do you say to that, son?"

"Nothing," the student replies. "I only have my faith."

"Yes, faith," the professor repeats. "And that is the problem science
has
with God. There is no evidence, only faith."

The student stands quietly for a moment, before asking a question of His
own. "Professor, is there such thing as heat?"

"Yes," the professor replies. "There's heat."

"And is there such a thing as cold?"

"Yes, son, there's cold too."

"No sir, there isn't."

The professor turns to face the student, obviously interested. The room
suddenly becomes very quiet. The student begins to explain. "You can
have
lots of heat, even more heat, super-heat, mega-heat, unlimited heat,
white
heat, a little heat or no heat, but we don't have anything called
'cold'. We
can hit up to 458 degrees below zero, which is no heat, but we can't go
any
further after that. There is no such thing as cold; otherwise we would
be
able to go colder than the lowest -458 degrees."

"Every body or object is susceptible to study when it has or transmits
energy, and heat is what makes a body or matter have or transmit energy.
Absolute zero (-458 F) is the total absence of heat. You see, sir, cold
is
only a word we use to describe the absence of heat. We cannot measure
cold.
Heat we can measure in thermal units because heat is energy. Cold is not
the
opposite of heat, sir, just the absence of it."

Silence across the room. A pen drops somewhere in the classroom,
sounding
like a hammer.

"What about darkness, professor. Is there such a thing as darkness?"

"Yes," the professor replies without hesitation. "What is night if it
isn't
darkness?"

"You're wrong again, sir. Darkness is not something; it is the absence
of
something. You can have low light, normal light, bright light, flashing
light, but if you have no light constantly you have nothing and it's
called
darkness, isn't it? That's the meaning we use to define the word."

"In reality, darkness isn't. If it were, you would be able to make
darkness darker, wouldn't you?"

The professor begins to smile at the student in front of him. This
will be
a good semester. "So what point are you making, young man?"

"Yes, professor. My point is, your philosophical premise is flawed to
start
with, and so your conclusion must also be flawed."

The professor's face cannot hide his surprise this time. "Flawed? Can
you
explain how?"

"You are working on the premise of duality," the student explains. "You
argue that there is life and then there's death; a good God and a bad
God.
You are viewing the concept of God as something finite, something we can
measure. Sir, science can't even explain a thought."

"It uses electricity and magnetism, but has never seen, much less fully
understood either one. To view death as the opposite of life is to be
ignorant of the fact that death cannot exist as a substantive thing.
Death
is not the opposite of life, just the absence of it."

"Now tell me, professor. Do you teach your students that they evolved
from a
monkey?"

"If you are referring to the natural evolutionary process, young man,
yes,
of course I do."

"Have you ever observed evolution with your own eyes, sir?"

The professor begins to shake his head, still smiling, as he realizes
where
the argument is going. A very good semester, indeed.

"Since no one has ever observed the process of evolution at work and
cannot
even prove that this process is an on-going endeavor, are you not
teaching
your opinion, sir? Are you now not a scientist, but a preacher?" The
class
is in uproar. The student remains silent until the commotion has
subsided.

"To continue the point you were making earlier to the other student, let
me
give you an example of what I mean."

The student looks around the room. "Is there anyone in the class who
has
ever seen the professor's brain?" The class breaks out into laughter.

"Is there anyone here who has ever heard the professor's brain, felt the
professor's brain, touched or smelt the professor's brain? No one
appears
to have done so. So, according to the established rules of empirical,
stable, demonstrable protocol, science says that you have no brain, with
all
due respect, sir."

"So if science says you have no brain, how can we trust your lectures,
sir?"

Now the room is silent. The professor just stares at the student, his
face
unreadable.

Finally, after what seems an eternity, the old man answers. "I guess
you'll have to take them on faith."

"Now, you accept that there is faith, and, in fact, faith exists with
life,"
the student continues. "Now, sir, is there such a thing as evil?"

Now uncertain, the professor responds, "Of course, there is. We see it
everyday. It is in the daily example of man's inhumanity to man. It is
in
the multitude of crime and violence everywhere in the world. These
manifestations are nothing else but evil."

To this the student replied, "Evil does not exist sir, or at least it
does
not exist unto itself. Evil is simply the absence of God. It is just
like
darkness and cold, a word that man has created to describe the absence
of
God. God did not create evil. Evil is the result of what happens when
man
does not have God's love present in his heart. It's like the cold that
comes when there is no heat or the darkness that comes when there is no
light."

The professor sat down.

--
You can't have a sense of humor, if you have no sense!

OT - Judeo-Christian nation?"

"Stuart Wheaton" wrote in message
...
RogerN wrote:
"Hawke" wrote in message
...
"RogerN" wrote in message
...
"Ed Huntress" wrote in message
...
"RogerN" wrote in message
m...
Don't swallow that crap they're feeding you. There is an entire
historical
society at the Univ. of Virginia and Monticello that has documented
Jefferson's writings. Go for the originals, not the interpretations by
those people that Jefferson most despised -- the ministers of the
church.
--
Ed Huntress

So all the pro Christian quotes from the founding fathers was not the
true
beliefs of the founding fathers, just something to sound good to the
people
of the nation? Sounds like they must have been speaking to a Christian
Nation, just like Obama quoted from the "Holy Koran" when in the middle
East
speaking to Islamic nations.

RogerN

You ought to be thanking Ed for setting you straight, correcting your
misinterpretations, and informing you with the facts. But I know you
won't.
You'll just go back to your Bible for comfort and will be silently
cursing
Ed for not agreeing with you.

Hawke

Ed had some quotes that with his explanation contradict the actions of
the
founding fathers. I pasted many quotes that were backed up by the
actions
of the founding fathers. Ed thinks his understanding is correct, there
is
no point in arguing with him. He could also claim the Earth is flat, no
use
in arguing that either. I pasted quotes and actions, he pasted quotes
with
spin, believe what you want.

RogerN

You would think that if we were a Christian nation, the name of Jesus
Christ would appear prominently in our founding documents. Yet in the
Articles of Confederation, the Declaration of Independence, and the
Constitution and Bill of Rights, there is NO mention of Jesus, and only
a small nod to a Creator.

Have you ever been to a Christian gathering where Christ is never
mentioned? Have you ever read the founding documents of a Christian
sect that does not mention Jesus?

America never was and never will be a "Christian" nation.

Here's what the founding fathers said, sorry but they did mention Jesus.

John Adams and John Hancock:
We Recognize No Sovereign but God, and no King but Jesus! [April 18, 1775]

John Adams:
" The general principles upon which the Fathers achieved independence were
the general principals of Christianity. I will avow that I believed and now
believe that those general principles of Christianity are as eternal and
immutable as the existence and attributes of God."
.. "[July 4th] ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance by solemn
acts of devotion to God Almighty."
-John Adams in a letter written to Abigail on the day the Declaration was
approved by Congress

"We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human
passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or
gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale
goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious
people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." --October
11, 1798

"I have examined all religions, as well as my narrow sphere, my straightened
means, and my busy life, would allow; and the result is that the Bible is
the best Book in the world. It contains more philosophy than all the
libraries I have seen." December 25, 1813 letter to Thomas Jefferson

"Without Religion this World would be Something not fit to be mentioned in
polite Company, I mean Hell." [John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, April 19,
1817]

John Quincy Adams:
.. "Why is it that, next to the birthday of the Savior of the world, your
most joyous and most venerated festival returns on this day [the Fourth of
July]?" "Is it not that, in the chain of human events, the birthday of the
nation is indissolubly linked with the birthday of the Savior? That it forms
a leading event in the progress of the Gospel dispensation? Is it not that
the Declaration of Independence first organized the social compact on the
foundation of the Redeemer's mission upon earth? That it laid the
cornerstone of human government upon the first precepts of Christianity"?
--1837, at the age of 69, when he delivered a Fourth of July speech at
Newburyport, Massachusetts.

"The Law given from Sinai [The Ten Commandments] was a civil and municipal
as well as a moral and religious code."
John Quincy Adams. Letters to his son. p. 61

Charles Carroll - signer of the Declaration of Independence | Portrait of
Charles Carroll
" Without morals a republic cannot subsist any length of time; they
therefore who are decrying the Christian religion, whose morality is so
sublime and pure...are undermining the solid foundation of morals, the best
security for the duration of free governments." [Source: To James McHenry on
November 4, 1800.]

Benjamin Franklin: | Portrait of Ben Franklin
" God governs in the affairs of man. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the
ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without
His aid? We have been assured in the Sacred Writings that except the Lord
build the house, they labor in vain that build it. I firmly believe this. I
also believe that, without His concurring aid, we shall succeed in this
political building no better than the builders of Babel" -Constitutional
Convention of 1787 | original manuscript of this speech

This is what Ed claims to be deism

Alexander Hamilton:
.. Hamilton began work with the Rev. James Bayard to form the Christian
Constitutional Society to help spread over the world the two things which
Hamilton said made America great:
(1) Christianity
(2) a Constitution formed under Christianity.
"The Christian Constitutional Society, its object is first: The support of
the Christian religion. Second: The support of the United States."

On July 12, 1804 at his death, Hamilton said, "I have a tender reliance on
the mercy of the Almighty, through the merits of the Lord Jesus Christ. I am
a sinner. I look to Him for mercy; pray for me."

"For my own part, I sincerely esteem it [the Constitution] a system which
without the finger of God, never could have been suggested and agreed upon
by such a diversity of interests." [1787 after the Constitutional
Convention]

"I have carefully examined the evidences of the Christian religion, and if I
was sitting as a juror upon its authenticity I would unhesitatingly give my
verdict in its favor. I can prove its truth as clearly as any proposition
ever submitted to the mind of man."

John Hancock:
.. "In circumstances as dark as these, it becomes us, as Men and Christians,
to reflect that whilst every prudent measure should be taken to ward off the
impending judgments, .at the same time all confidence must be withheld from
the means we use; and reposed only on that God rules in the armies of
Heaven, and without His whole blessing, the best human counsels are but
foolishness. Resolved; .Thursday the 11th of May.to humble themselves before
God under the heavy judgments felt and feared, to confess the sins that have
deserved them, to implore the Forgiveness of all our transgressions, and a
spirit of repentance and reformation .and a Blessing on the . Union of the
American Colonies in Defense of their Rights [for which hitherto we desire
to thank Almighty God].That the people of Great Britain and their rulers may
have their eyes opened to discern the things that shall make for the peace
of the nation.for the redress of America's many grievances, the restoration
of all her invaded liberties, and their security to the latest generations.
"A Day of Fasting, Humiliation and Prayer, with a total abstinence from
labor and recreation. Proclamation on April 15, 1775"

Patrick Henry:
"Orator of the Revolution."
.. This is all the inheritance I can give my dear family. The religion of
Christ can give them one which will make them rich indeed."
-The Last Will and Testament of Patrick Henry

"It cannot be emphasized too clearly and too often that this nation was
founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religion, but on the
gospel of Jesus Christ. For this very reason, peoples of other faiths have
been afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom of worship here." [May 1765
Speech to the House of Burgesses]

"The Bible is worth all other books which have ever been printed."

John Jay:
" Providence has given to our people the choice of their rulers, and it is
the duty, as well as the privilege and interest of our Christian nation to
select and prefer Christians for their rulers." Source: October 12, 1816.
The Correspondence and Public Papers of John Jay, Henry P. Johnston, ed.,
(New York: Burt Franklin, 1970), Vol. IV, p. 393.

"Whether our religion permits Christians to vote for infidel rulers is a
question which merits more consideration than it seems yet to have generally
received either from the clergy or the laity. It appears to me that what the
prophet said to Jehoshaphat about his attachment to Ahab ["Shouldest thou
help the ungodly and love them that hate the Lord?" 2 Chronicles 19:2]
affords a salutary lesson." [The Correspondence and Public Papers of John
Jay, 1794-1826, Henry P. Johnston, editor (New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons,
1893), Vol. IV, p.365]

Thomas Jefferson:
" The doctrines of Jesus are simple, and tend to all the happiness of man."

"Of all the systems of morality, ancient or modern which have come under my
observation, none appears to me so pure as that of Jesus."

"I am a real Christian, that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of
Jesus."

"God who gave us life gave us liberty. And can the liberties of a nation be
thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in
the minds of the people that these liberties are a gift from God? That they
are not to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed I tremble for my country
when I reflect that God is just, and that His justice cannot sleep forever."
(excerpts are inscribed on the walls of the Jefferson Memorial in the
nations capital) [Source: Merrill . D. Peterson, ed., Jefferson Writings,
(New York: Literary Classics of the United States, Inc., 1984), Vol. IV, p.
289. From Jefferson's Notes on the State of Virginia, Query XVIII, 1781.]

Samuel Johnston:
.. "It is apprehended that Jews, Mahometans (Muslims), pagans, etc., may be
elected to high offices under the government of the United States. Those who
are Mahometans, or any others who are not professors of the Christian
religion, can never be elected to the office of President or other high
office, [unless] first the people of America lay aside the Christian
religion altogether, it may happen. Should this unfortunately take place,
the people will choose such men as think as they do themselves.
[Elliot's Debates, Vol. IV, pp 198-199, Governor Samuel Johnston, July 30,
1788 at the North Carolina Ratifying Convention]

James Madison
" We've staked our future on our ability to follow the Ten Commandments with
all of our heart."

"We have staked the whole future of American civilization, not upon the
power of government, far from it. We've staked the future of all our
political institutions upon our capacity.to sustain ourselves according to
the Ten Commandments of God." [1778 to the General Assembly of the State of
Virginia]

.. I have sometimes thought there could not be a stronger testimony in favor
of religion or against temporal enjoyments, even the most rational and
manly, than for men who occupy the most honorable and gainful departments
and [who] are rising in reputation and wealth, publicly to declare the
unsatisfactoriness [of temportal enjoyments] by becoming fervent advocates
in the cause of Christ; and I wish you may give in your evidence in this
way.
Letter by Madison to William Bradford (September 25, 1773)
.. In 1812, President Madison signed a federal bill which economically aided
the Bible Society of Philadelphia in its goal of the mass distribution of
the Bible.
" An Act for the relief of the Bible Society of Philadelphia" Approved
February 2, 1813 by Congress

"It is the mutual duty of all to practice Christian forbearance, love, and
charity toward each other."

.. A watchful eye must be kept on ourselves lest, while we are building ideal
monuments of renown and bliss here, we neglect to have our names enrolled in
the Annals of Heaven. [Letter by Madison to William Bradford [urging him to
make sure of his own salvation] November 9, 1772]

At the Constitutional Convention of 1787, James Madison proposed the plan to
divide the central government into three branches. He discovered this model
of government from the Perfect Governor, as he read Isaiah 33:22;
"For the LORD is our judge, the LORD is our lawgiver,
the LORD is our king;
He will save us."
[Baron Charles Montesquieu, wrote in 1748; "Nor is there liberty if the
power of judging is not separated from legislative power and from executive
power. If it [the power of judging] were joined to legislative power, the
power over life and liberty of the citizens would be arbitrary, for the
judge would be the legislature if it were joined to the executive power, the
judge could have the force of an oppressor. All would be lost if the same .
body of principal men . exercised these three powers." Madison claimed
Isaiah 33:22 as the source of division of power in government
See also: pp.241-242 in Teaching and Learning America's Christian History:
The Principle approach by Rosalie Slater]

James McHenry - Signer of the Constitution
Public utility pleads most forcibly for the general distribution of the Holy
Scriptures. The doctrine they preach, the obligations they impose, the
punishment they threaten, the rewards they promise, the stamp and image of
divinity they bear, which produces a conviction of their truths, can alone
secure to society, order and peace, and to our courts of justice and
constitutions of government, purity, stability and usefulness. In vain,
without the Bible, we increase penal laws and draw entrenchments around our
institutions. Bibles are strong entrenchments. Where they abound, men cannot
pursue wicked courses, and at the same time enjoy quiet conscience.

Jedediah Morse:
"To the kindly influence of Christianity we owe that degree of civil
freedom, and political and social happiness which mankind now enjoys. . . .
Whenever the pillars of Christianity shall be overthrown, our present
republican forms of government, and all blessings which flow from them, must
fall with them."

John Peter Gabriel Muhlenberg
In a sermon delivered to his Virginia congregation on Jan. 21, 1776, he
preached from Ecclesiastes 3.
Arriving at verse 8, which declares that there is a time of war and a time
of peace, Muhlenberg noted that this surely was not the time of peace; this
was the time of war. Concluding with a prayer, and while standing in full
view of the congregation, he removed his clerical robes to reveal that
beneath them he was wearing the uniform of an officer in the Continental
army! He marched to the back of the church; ordered the drum to beat for
recruits and over three hundred men joined him, becoming the Eighth Virginia
Brigade. John Peter Muhlenberg finished the Revolution as a Major-General,
having been at Valley Forge and having participated in the battles of
Brandywine, Germantown, Monmouth, Stonypoint, and Yorktown.

Thomas Paine:
" It has been the error of the schools to teach astronomy, and all the other
sciences, and subjects of natural philosophy, as accomplishments only;
whereas they should be taught theologically, or with reference to the Being
who is the author of them: for all the principles of science are of divine
origin. Man cannot make, or invent, or contrive principles: he can only
discover them; and he ought to look through the discovery to the Author."
" The evil that has resulted from the error of the schools, in teaching
natural philosophy as an accomplishment only, has been that of generating in
the pupils a species of atheism. Instead of looking through the works of
creation to the Creator himself, they stop short, and employ the knowledge
they acquire to create doubts of his existence. They labour with studied
ingenuity to ascribe every thing they behold to innate properties of matter,
and jump over all the rest by saying, that matter is eternal." "The
Existence of God--1810"

Benjamin Rush:
.. "I lament that we waste so much time and money in punishing crimes and
take so little pains to prevent them.we neglect the only means of
establishing and perpetuating our republican forms of government; that is,
the universal education of our youth in the principles of Christianity by
means of the Bible; for this Divine Book, above all others, constitutes the
soul of republicanism." "By withholding the knowledge of [the Scriptures]
from children, we deprive ourselves of the best means of awakening moral
sensibility in their minds." [Letter written (1790's) in Defense of the
Bible in all schools in America]
.. "Christianity is the only true and perfect religion."
.. "If moral precepts alone could have reformed mankind, the mission of the
Son of God into our world would have been unnecessary."

"Let the children who are sent to those schools be taught to read and write
and above all, let both sexes be carefully instructed in the principles and
obligations of the Christian religion. This is the most essential part of
education"
Letters of Benjamin Rush, "To the citizens of Philadelphia: A Plan for Free
Schools", March 28, 1787

Justice Joseph Story:
" I verily believe Christianity necessary to the support of civil society.
One of the beautiful boasts of our municipal jurisprudence is that
Christianity is a part of the Common Law. . . There never has been a period
in which the Common Law did not recognize Christianity as lying its
foundations."
[Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States p. 593]
" Infidels and pagans were banished from the halls of justice as unworthy of
credit." [Life and letters of Joseph Story, Vol. II 1851, pp. 8-9.]
" At the time of the adoption of the constitution, and of the amendment to
it, now under consideration [i.e., the First Amendment], the general, if not
the universal sentiment in America was, that Christianity ought to receive
encouragement from the state, so far as was not incompatible with the
private rights of conscience, and the freedom of religious worship."
[Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States p. 593]

Noah Webster:
" The duties of men are summarily comprised in the Ten Commandments,
consisting of two tables; one comprehending the duties which we owe
immediately to God-the other, the duties we owe to our fellow men."

"In my view, the Christian religion is the most important and one of the
first things in which all children, under a free government ought to be
instructed...No truth is more evident to my mind than that the Christian
religion must be the basis of any government intended to secure the rights
and privileges of a free people."
[Source: 1828, in the preface to his American Dictionary of the English
Language]

Let it be impressed on your mind that God commands you to choose for rulers
just men who will rule in the fear of God [Exodus 18:21]. . . . If the
citizens neglect their duty and place unprincipled men in office, the
government will soon be corrupted . . . If our government fails to secure
public prosperity and happiness, it must be because the citizens neglect the
Divine commands, and elect bad men to make and administer the laws. [Noah
Webster, The History of the United States (New Haven: Durrie and Peck,
1832), pp. 336-337, 49]

"All the miseries and evils which men suffer from vice, crime, ambition,
injustice, oppression, slavery and war, proceed from their despising or
neglecting the precepts contained in the Bible." [Noah Webster. History. p.
339]

"The Bible was America's basic textbook
in all fields." [Noah Webster. Our Christian Heritage p.5]

"Education is useless without the Bible" [Noah Webster. Our Christian
Heritage p.5 ]

George Washington:

Farewell Address: The name of American, which belongs to you, in your
national capacity, must always exalt the just pride of Patriotism, more than
any appellation derived from local discriminations. With slight shades of
difference, you have the same religion" ...and later: "...reason and
experience both forbid us to expect, that national morality can prevail in
exclusion of religious principle..."

" It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and Bible."

"What students would learn in American schools above all is the religion of
Jesus Christ." [speech to the Delaware Indian Chiefs May 12, 1779]

"To the distinguished character of patriot, it should be our highest glory
to add the more distinguished character of Christian" [May 2, 1778, at
Valley Forge]

During his inauguration, Washington took the oath as prescribed by the
Constitution but added several religious components to that official
ceremony. Before taking his oath of office, he summoned a Bible on which to
take the oath, added the words "So help me God!" to the end of the oath,
then leaned over and kissed the Bible.

Nelly Custis-Lewis (Washington's adopted daughter):
Is it necessary that any one should [ask], "Did General Washington avow
himself to be a believer in Christianity?" As well may we question his
patriotism, his heroic devotion to his country. His mottos were, "Deeds, not
Words"; and, "For God and my Country."

" O Most Glorious God, in Jesus Christ, my merciful and loving Father; I
acknowledge and confess my guilt in the weak and imperfect performance of
the duties of this day. I have called on Thee for pardon and forgiveness of
my sins, but so coldly and carelessly that my prayers are become my sin, and
they stand in need of pardon."
" I have sinned against heaven and before Thee in thought, word, and deed. I
have contemned Thy majesty and holy laws. I have likewise sinned by omitting
what I ought to have done and committing what I ought not. I have rebelled
against the light, despising Thy mercies and judgment, and broken my vows
and promise. I have neglected the better things. My iniquities are
multiplied and my sins are very great. I confess them, O Lord, with shame
and sorrow, detestation and loathing and desire to be vile in my own eyes as
I have rendered myself vile in Thine. I humbly beseech Thee to be merciful
to me in the free pardon of my sins for the sake of Thy dear Son and only
Savior Jesus Christ who came to call not the righteous, but sinners to
repentance. Thou gavest Thy Son to die for me."
[George Washington; from a 24 page authentic handwritten manuscript book
dated April 21-23, 1752
William J. Johnson George Washington, the Christian (New York: The Abingdon
Press, New York & Cincinnati, 1919), pp. 24-35.]

"Although guided by our excellent Constitution in the discharge of official
duties, and actuated, through the whole course of my public life, solely by
a wish to promote the best interests of our country; yet, without the
beneficial interposition of the Supreme Ruler of the Universe, we could not
have reached the distinguished situation which we have attained with such
unprecedented rapidity. To HIM, therefore, should we bow with gratitude and
reverence, and endeavor to merit a continuance of HIS special favors". [1797
letter to John Adams]

James Wilson:
Signer of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution
Supreme Court Justice appointed by George Washington
Spoke 168 times during the Constitutional Convention

"Christianity is part of the common law"
[Sources: James Wilson, Course of Lectures [vol 3, p.122]; and quoted in
Updegraph v. The Commonwealth, 11 Serg, & R. 393, 403 (1824).]

Time to spin with Ed's teachers. :-)

Liberty Bell Inscription:
" Proclaim liberty throughout the land and to all the inhabitants thereof"
[Leviticus 25:10]

Proposals for the seal of the United States of America
.. "Moses lifting his wand and dividing the Red Sea" -Ben Franklin

.. "The children of Israel in the wilderness, led by a cloud by day and a
pillar of fire by night." --Thomas Jefferson

On July 4, 1776, Congress appointed Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and
John Adams "to bring in a device for a seal for the United States of
America." Franklin's proposal adapted the biblical story of the parting of
the Red Sea. Jefferson first recommended the "Children of Israel in the
Wilderness, led by a Cloud by Day, and a Pillar of Fire by night. . . ." He
then embraced Franklin's proposal and rewrote it

Jefferson's revision of Franklin's proposal was presented by the committee
to Congress on August 20, 1776.

Another popular proposal to the Great Seal of the United States was:
" Rebellion to Tyrants is Obedience to God"; with Pharoah's army drowning in
the Red Sea

The three branches of the U.S. Government: Judicial, Legislative, Executive
.. At the Constitutional Convention of 1787, James Madison proposed the plan
to divide the central government into three branches. He discovered this
model of government from the Perfect Governor, as he read Isaiah 33:22;
"For the LORD is our judge,
the LORD is our lawgiver,
the LORD is our king;
He will save us."

Article 22 of the constitution of Delaware (1776)
Required all officers, besides taking an oath of allegiance, to make and
subscribe to the following declaration:
.. "I, [name], do profess faith in God the Father, and in Jesus Christ His
only Son, and in the Holy Ghost, one God, blessed for evermore; and I do
acknowledge the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be given by
divine inspiration."

New York Spectator. August 23, 1831
" The court of common pleas of Chester county, [New York] rejected a witness
who declared his disbelief in the existence of God. The presiding judge
remarked that he had not before been aware that there was a man living who
did not believe in the existence of God; that this belief constituted the
sanction of all testimony in a court of justice: and that he knew of no
cause in a Christian country where a witness had been permitted to testify
without such belief.

New England Primer:
Used in public and private schools from 1690 to 1900 second only to the
Bible
Some of its contents:
A song of praise to God
Prayers in Jesus' name
The famous Bible alphabet

Shorter Catechism of faith in Christ

Was the faith of the Founding Fathers deism or Christianity? What does the
answer mean for us today? Both the secularists and the Christians have
missed the mark.

There's been a lot of rustle in the press lately--and in many
Christian publications--about the faith of the Founding Fathers and the
status of the United States as a "Christian nation." Home schooling texts
abound with references to our religious heritage, and entire organizations
are dedicated to returning America to its spiritual roots. On the other
side, secularists cry "foul" and parade their own list of notables among our
country's patriarchs. They rally around the cry of "separation of church and
state." Which side is right? Oddly both, after a fashion.

Who Were the Founding Fathers?

Historical proof-texts can be raised on both sides. Certainly there
were godless men among the early leadership of our nation, though some of
those cited as examples of Founding Fathers turn out to be insignificant
players. For example, Thomas Paine and Ethan Allen may have been hostile to
evangelical Christianity, but they were firebrands of the Revolution, not
intellectual architects of the Constitution. Paine didn't arrive in this
country until 1774 and only stayed a short time.
As for others--George Washington, Samuel Adams, James Madison, John
Witherspoon, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, John Adams, Patrick Henry, and
even Thomas Jefferson--their personal correspondence, biographies, and
public statements are replete with quotations showing that these thinkers
had political philosophies deeply influenced by Christianity.

The Constitutional Convention

It's not necessary to dig through the diaries, however, to determine
which faith was the Founder's guiding light. There's an easier way to settle
the issue.

The phrase "Founding Fathers" is a proper noun. It refers to a
specific group of men, the 55 delegates to the Constitutional Convention.
There were other important players not in attendance, like Jefferson, whose
thinking deeply influenced the shaping of our nation. These 55 Founding
Fathers, though, made up the core.

The denominational affiliations of these men were a matter of public
record. Among the delegates were 28 Episcopalians, 8 Presbyterians, 7
Congregationalists, 2 Lutherans, 2 Dutch Reformed, 2 Methodists, 2 Roman
Catholics, 1 unknown, and only 3 deists--Williamson, Wilson, and
Franklin--this at a time when church membership entailed a sworn public
confession of biblical faith.[1]

This is a revealing tally. It shows that the members of the
Constitutional Convention, the most influential group of men shaping the
political foundations of our nation, were almost all Christians, 51 of 55--a
full 93%. Indeed, 70% were Calvinists (the Episcopalians, Presbyterians, and
the Dutch Reformed), considered by some to be the most extreme and dogmatic
form of Christianity.

Benjamin Franklin

Even Franklin the deist is equivocal. He was raised in a Puritan
family and later adopted then abandoned deism. Though not an orthodox
Christian, it was 81-year-old Franklin's emotional call to humble prayer on
June 28, 1787, that was the turning point for a hopelessly stalled
Convention. James Madison recorded the event in his collection of notes and
debates from the Federal Convention. Franklin's appeal contained no less
than four direct references to Scripture.

And have we forgotten that powerful Friend? Or do we imagine that we
no longer need His assistance? I have lived, sir, a long time and the longer
I live the more convincing proofs I see of this truth: that God governs in
the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his
notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid? We have been
assured, sir, in the sacred writings that 'except the Lord build the house,
they labor in vain that build it.' I firmly believe this and I also believe
that without His concurring aid, we shall succeed in this political building
no better than the builders of Babel.[2]
Three of the four cornerstones of the Constitution--Franklin,
Washington, and Madison--were firmly rooted in Christianity. But what about
Thomas Jefferson? His signature cannot be found at the end of the
Constitution, but his voice permeates the entire document.

Thomas Jefferson

Though deeply committed to a belief in natural rights, including the
self-evident truth that all men are created equal, Jefferson was
individualistic when it came to religion; he sifted through the New
Testament to find the facts that pleased him.

Sometimes he sounded like a staunch churchman. The Declaration of
Independence contains at least four references to God. In his Second
Inaugural Address he asked for prayers to Israel's God on his behalf. Other
times Jefferson seemed to go out of his way to be irreverent and
disrespectful of organized Christianity, especially Calvinism.

It's clear that Thomas Jefferson was no evangelical, but neither was
he an Enlightenment deist. He was more Unitarian than either deist or
Christian.[3]

This analysis, though, misses the point. The most important factor
regarding the faith of Thomas Jefferson--or any of our Founding
Fathers--isn't whether or not he had a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. The
debate over the religious heritage of this country is not about who is
ultimately going to heaven, but rather about what the dominant convictions
were that dictated the structure of this nation.

Even today there are legions of born-again Christians who have
absolutely no skill at integrating their beliefs about Christ with the
details of their daily life, especially their views of government. They may
be "saved," but they are completely ineffectual as salt and light.

By contrast, some of the Fathers may not have been believers in the
narrowest sense of the term, yet in the broader sense--the sense that
influences culture--their thinking was thoroughly Christian. Unlike many
evangelicals who live lives of practical atheism, these men had political
ideals that were deeply informed by a robust Christian world view. They
didn't always believe biblically, having a faith leading to salvation, but
almost all thought biblically, resulting in a particular type of government.

Thomas Jefferson was this kind of man. In Defending the Declaration,
legal historian Gary Amos observes, "Jefferson is a notable example of how a
man can be influenced by biblical ideas and Christian principles even though
he never confessed Jesus Christ as Lord in the evangelical sense."[4]

What Did the Founding Fathers Believe and Value?
When you study the documents of the Revolutionary period, a precise
picture comes into focus. Here it is:

a.. Virtually all those involved in the founding enterprise were
God-fearing men in the Christian sense; most were Calvinistic Protestants.
b.. The Founders were deeply influenced by a biblical view of man
and government. With a sober understanding of the fallenness of man, they
devised a system of limited authority and checks and balances.
c.. The Founders understood that fear of God, moral leadership, and
a righteous citizenry were necessary for their great experiment to succeed.
d.. Therefore, they structured a political climate that was
encouraging to Christianity and accommodating to religion, rather than
hostile to it.
e.. Protestant Christianity was the prevailing religious view for
the first 150 years of our history.

However...

a.. The Fathers sought to set up a just society, not a Christian
theocracy.
b.. They specifically prohibited the establishment of
Christianity--or any other faith--as the religion of our nation.

A Two-Sided Coin

We can safely draw two conclusions from these facts, which serve to
inform our understanding of the relationship between religion and government
in the United States.

First, Christianity was the prevailing moral and intellectual
influence shaping the nation from its outset. The Christian influence
pervaded all aspects of life, from education to politics. Therefore, the
present concept of a rigid wall of separation hardly seems historically
justified.

Virtually every one of the Founders saw a vital link between civil
religion and civil government. George Washington's admonitions in his
Farewell Speech, September 19, 1796, were characteristic of the general
sentiment:

Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political
prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports....And let us
indulge with caution the supposition that morality can be maintained without
religion. Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national
morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principles.[5]
Second, the Founders stopped short of giving their Christian religion
a position of legal privilege. In the tradition of the early church,
believers were to be salt and light. The First Amendment insured the liberty
needed for Christianity to be a preserving influence and a moral beacon, but
it also insured Christianity would never be the law of the land.

This ought to call into serious question a common tactic of the
so-called Religious Right. "We were here first," their apologists proclaim.
"Our country was stolen from us, and we demand it back." Author John Seel
calls this "priority as entitlement."

The sad fact of the matter is that cultural authority was not stolen
from us; we surrendered it through neglect. Os Guinness pointed out that
Christians have not been out-thought. Rather, they have not been around when
the thinking was being done.

Choosing cultural monasticism rather than hard-thinking advocacy,
Christians abandoned the public square to the secularists. When the
disciples of Jesus Christ retreated, the disciples of Dewey, Marx, Darwin,
Freud, Nietzsche, Skinner, and a host of others replaced them.

Seel warns of the liability of an "appeal to history as a basis of
Christian grounds to authority."[6] Playing the victim will not restore our
influence, nor will political strong-arm tactics. Shouldn't our appeal
rather be on the basis of truth rather than on the patterns of the past?

The faith of our Founding Fathers was Christianity, not deism. In this
regard, many secularists--and even some Christians--have been wrong in their
assessment of our history. On the other hand, many Christians have also been
mistaken in their application of the past to the present.

Christians have no special privileges simply because Christianity was
America's first faith. "If America ever was or ever will be a 'Christian
nation,'" Seel observes, "it is not by conscious design or written law, but
by free conviction."[7]

Success for the Christian cannot be measured in numbers or political
muscle, but only in faithfulness. Our most important weapon is not our
voting power, but the power of the truth freely spoken and freely heard.

Recommended Reading:

Let Freedom Ring--A Basic Outline of American History, available
through the Family Research Council, 700 Thirteenth St., N.W., Suite 500,
Washington D.C. 20005, 1-800-225-4008

The Light and the Glory, Peter Marshall and David Manuel (Grand
Rapids: Revell, 1977)

Christianity and the Constitution--The Faith of Our Founding Fathers,
John Eidsmoe (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1987)

Defending the Declaration--How the Bible and Christianity Influenced
the Writing of the Declaration of Independence, Gary T. Amos (Brentwood, TN:
Wogelmuth & Hyatt, 1989)

Positive Neutrality: Letting Religious Freedom Ring, Stephen T.
Monsma, (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1993)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

[1] John Eidsmoe, Christianity and the Constitution, (Grand Rapids:
Baker, 1987), p. 43.
[2] Benjamin Franklin, quoted by James Madison in Notes on Debates in
the Federal Convention of 1787 (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1966, 1985),
p. 209.

[3] Eidsmoe has a very thorough and even-handed section on Jefferson.

[4] Gary T. Amos, Defending the Declaration, (Brentwood, TN: Wogelmuth
& Hyatt, 1989), p. 9.

[5] The Annals of America, (Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica, 1976),
vol. 3, p. 612.

[6] John Seel, No God But God--Breaking with the Idols of Our Age, Os
Guinness and John Seel, eds., (Chicago: Moody Press, 1992), p. 64.

[7] John Seel, No God But God--Breaking with the Idols of Our Age, Os
Guinness and John Seel, eds., (Chicago: Moody Press, 1992), p. 69.

The following research and ideas are based on a presentation given by
Virginia Vallee on the Faith of the Founders of the United States. The goal
in this piece is to suggest some theories, identify relevant themes and give
some examples.

1. THE U.S. FOUNDERS' FAITH IN REASON BONDED THEM INTO A PRACTICAL UNITY OF
PROBLEM SOLVERS.

"A government held together by the bonds of reason only requires much
compromise of opinion;." [R118v16 p23; Jefferson 1824]

2. TO THEM, REASON MEANT A TALENT TO DEVELOP AND A TOOL TO USE.

".be able to enjoy in safety the exercise of reason and the rights of man."
[C1 p151 Price]

3. IN THEIR EDUCATION THEY HEARD THAT GOD GAVE MAN REASON AND EXPECTED THIS
GIFT TO BE USED WELL.

"By acting without thought or reason, we dishonour the God that made us
reasonable creatures." [R90 C21 p6, Isaac Watts (1674-1748)]

"Reason, a gift from God, is common to the whole species." [R225v3p41]
Bolingbroke

"He (God) has given us Reason, to find out the Truth, and the real Design
and true End of our Existence." [B19i/ p43-44; Adams, 1756, on Crawford]

4. THEY LIVED IN AN ATMOSPHERE WHERE REASON AND RELIGION WERE COMPLIMENTS,
NOT CONTRADICTORIES.

"He that takes away reason, to make way for revelation, puts out the light
of both." John Locke (1632-1704) [B20 p289]

"It is.blasphemy against religion to suppose it cannot stand the test of
truth and reason" [Thomas Jefferson in a letter to Dufief in 1814]

5. U.S. FOUNDERS, AS A RULE, DID NOT WORSHIP REASON OR TRY TO TURN "REASON"
INTO A GOD AS FREQUENTLY HAPPENED IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.

"Reason is a faculty, or rather an aggregate of faculties, that is bestowed
in different degrees,." [R225v3p41 Bolingbroke]

6. U.S. FOUNDERS COULD ON MANY OCCASIONS REASON TOGETHER AND POOL THEIR
KNOWLEDGE FOR GREATER EFFECT.

"We are going fairly through the experiment whether freedom of discussion,
unaided by coercion, is not sufficient for the propagation and protection of
truth,.No one ought to feel, under this experiment, more than myself..I
shall.go on.proving that a people, easy in their circumstances as ours, are
capable of conducting themselves under a government founded not in the fears
and follies of man, but on his reason,." 1802 Jefferson (1743-1826) [B24
p95]

Better start spinning the truth to fit what you believe!

RogerN

OT - Judeo-Christian nation?"

"We are going fairly through the experiment whether freedom of discussion,
unaided by coercion, is not sufficient for the propagation and protection
of
truth,.No one ought to feel, under this experiment, more than myself..I
shall.go on.proving that a people, easy in their circumstances as ours,
are
capable of conducting themselves under a government founded not in the
fears
and follies of man, but on his reason,." 1802 Jefferson (1743-1826) [B24
p95]

Better start spinning the truth to fit what you believe!

RogerN

Unfortunately, you're the one who is "spinning". As is usually the case when
one makes a bad argument, you start off with a belief and then go about
finding facts that prove your belief. You have chosen to believe in god. You
WANT to believe in god. Then you look high and low to find proof of what you
chose to believe. Most of your proof comes from the Bible. Not a surprise
you find most of your evidence there. But when you really look at the facts
you will notice that you can't make a convincing case, to an unbiased
person, they should believe as you do. You believe as you do because you
chose to. Others choose not to believe in things they have to accept on the
words of others or worse, on faith. In every area of life aside from
religion I'm sure you don't accept things on faith. It should be a red flag
to you that the only area in which you give up the principles of reason and
facts is in your religious beliefs, which shows how bad you want to believe
in god. And no matter how many quotes from people who lived hundreds of
years ago you have it will never win any argument they knew any more than we
do today about supernatural beings. They may have believed in them based on
faith. Nowadays, you are going to find fewer and fewer people who will do
that. If you can't produce the goods backing up your claims you aren't going
to convince us that you know what you are talking about, and when you are
trying to prove something improvable exists you have an impossible job to
do. But a good zealot never quits. How about you?

Hawke